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GIFT  OF 

THOMAS    RUTHtRFORD  BACON 


Historical  Sketches 


OF 


NEW  HAVEN 


BY 


ELLEN    STRONG    BARTLETT 


New  Haven  : 

Printed  by  Tutti,e,  Morehouse  &  Tayi^or. 

1897 


^s# 


Copyright    1897 
by 

Ei^i.EN  Strong  BARTtETT 


To    MY    DEAR   SCHOI,ARS 
WHEREVER    THEY     MAY     BE 

(Jilis   JBook 

IS     AFFECTIONATEI,Y     INSCRIBED. 

E.    S.    B. 


267905 


PREFATORY    NOTE. 


These  papers  have  appeared  by  request,  from  time  to  time,  in  The 
Connediait  Quarterh  and  the  New  Englmid  Magazine ;  and  as  some  of  them 
are   out  of  print,   it  has  seemed   best   to  bring  them  together  in  this  volume. 

Although  they  are  a  humble  contribution  to  the  literature  that  is 
accumulating  with  reference  to  New  Haven,  they  are  the  result  of  loving 
and  careful  research  in  the  most  trustworthy  sources  of  information,  and  it 
is  earnestly  hoped  that  everything  therein  stated  as  a  fact  rests  on  undoubted 
testimony. 

We  cannot  too  often  recount  the  efforts  made  in  planting  the  tree,  if 
thereby  those  who  eat  the  fruit  are  incited  to  till  the  soil  about  the  roots. 

E.  S.   B. 


CONTENTS. 


The  New  Haven  Green,         ---...  g 

A  New  Haven  Church,      --..-.  21 

The  Grove  Street  Cemetery,            -            -            -            -            -  42 

H11.LHOXJSE  Avenue,             ---...  ^5 

John  Trumbull,  The  Patriot  Painter,        •            -            -            -  77 


Historical  Sketches  of  New  Haven. 


When  the  forefathers  marked  out  their  famous  nine  squares,  with  that  in 
the  middle  set  apart  as  a  "public  market-place,"  they  fixed  the  center  of  the 
life  of  the  city  of  Elms.  The  Green  has  been  called  the  heart  of  New  Haven. 
In  absence,  the  name  calls  up  stirring  memories  ;  on  return,  the  sight  of  it  stirs 
thrills  of  recognition.  It  is  only  a  simple  grassy  square,  surrounded  and  dotted 
by  trees,  divided  by  Temple  street,  crossed  by  many  paths  for  the  convenience 
of  busy  people  ;  and  enshrining  three  old  churches.  But  the  square  has  been 
there  since  Davenport  and  Eaton  laid  out  the  town  in  1638  ;  the  trees  have 
stood  a  hundred  years  ;  and  around  the  churches  are  entwined  the  historic 
associations  of  the  colony  and  the  city. 

The  changes  have  been  many.  The  alders  and  willows  that  over-hung 
pools  of  water,  have  gone;  so,  too,  have  the  "market-house,"  the  whipping- 
post, the  buildings  which  one  after  another  graced  or  disgraced  its  surface.  The 
area  is  sixteen  acres  ;  it  is  not  exactly  square,  because  the  surveyor  who  meas- 
ured it  in  the  midst  of  primeval  wildness,  was  unable  to  be  stridlly  accurate,  but 
to  the  ej^e  this  is  not  apparent. 

The  surveyor  was  John  Brockett,  son  of  Sir  John  Brockett  of  Brockett's 
Hall,  Herefordshire  ;  and  perhaps  a  little  inexacftness  may  be  understood,  if  we 
believe  the  tradition  that  he  had  left  all  in  England  and  had  crossed  the  sea  in 
pursuit  of  a  charming  girl  among  the  Puritan  band. 

Around  the  Green  were  placed  the  houses  of  the  leaders  of  the  colony, 
which  was  the  most  opulent  of  those  that  left  England,  and  thus  the  Green  has 
always  been  before  the  eyes  of  the  citizens,  and  has  been  the  short-cut  from  one 
"  quarter  "  to  another.     It  is  itself  a  token  that  the  colonists  came,  not  to  seek 


lo 


The  New  Haven  Green. 


adventure  or  to  avoid  the  restraints  of  civilized  life,  but  with  a  definite  purpose 
to  found  a  state,  with  a  city  at  its  head,  that  they  intended  to  be  graced  by 
order  and  beauty.  May  the  good  intentions  of  good  men  always  be  thus  carried 
out. 

The  building  of  the  meeting-house,  identified  in  New  Haven  so  pre- 
eminently with  the  state,  came  foremost  in  their  plans.  The  first  Sabbath, 
April  1 8,  1638,  has  been  often  described  ;  and  artists  have  been  inspired  by  the 
chronicle  to  show  us  the  spreading  oak  and  the  reverent  company  of  English- 
men, women  and  children,  assembled  there  for  the  worship  they  had  crossed  the 
ocean  to  maintain.     This  oak,  under  which  John  Davenport,  the  favorite  lyondon 


THE  GKEEN,  SHOWING  BRICK  CHURCH  AND  CHURCH-YARD. 

Frotn  a  Painting  in  the  rooms  0/  the  Neiv  Haven    Colony   tlistorical  Society, 


minister,  preached  on  "  the  temptation  in  the  wilderness,"  was  near  the  present 
corner  of  George  and  College  streets,  but  the  first  house  of  God  was  as  nearly  as 
possible,  in  the  center  of  the  Green.  This  was  in  1639,  and  on  this  historic  spot 
have  been  placed  the  successive  buildings  of  the  church,  so  appropriately  known 
as  the  "  Center."  Even  more  than  in  other  colonies  was  this  a  fitting  situation, 
for  the  founders  made  the  law  that  "the  Church  Members  only  shall  be  free 
Burgesses  ;  and  that  they  only  shall  chuse  magistrates  and  officers  among  them- 
selves to  have  the  power  of  transacfling  all  publique  civil  aSairs  of  this  planta- 
tion." 


The  New  Haven  Green. 


II 


The  "meeting-house  "  was  a  modest  little  shelter  for  sentiments  like  these. 
It  was  only  fifty  feet  square,  perfe(5tly  plain,  with  roof  like  a  truncated  pyramid, 
but  on  Sabbaths  it  must  haye  been  furnished  nobly  with  keen  intelledl  and  high 
principle.  We  know  all  about  the  Sabbath  then,  the  beating  of  the  drum,  the 
decorous  walk  through  the  Green  to  the  meeting-house,  the  careful  ranking  of 
seats,  the  stationing  of  the  guard  to  keep  watch  on  lurking  Indians.  Those 
who  go  up  now  to  worship  may  feel  that  they  are  literally  following  the  foot- 
steps of  the  fathers.  Through  the  Green  was  the  special  path  allowed  to  the 
first  pastor,  John  Davenport,  so  that  he  might  walk  on  Sundays  from  his  house 
to  the  pulpit  in  the  complete  seclusion  befitting  his  dignity.  Here,  later,  was 
the  first  school-house,  a  little  back  of  the  church,  and  alas  !  in  spite  of  all  these 
privileges  of  religious  and  political  liberty,  before  long  a  jail  was  necessary,  that 
made  a  blot  on  the  Green.     The  whipping-post  was  moved  about  until   1831, 


THE  GREKN. 
From  a  Drawing;  owned  by  the  New  Haven  Colony  Historical  Society, 

when  it  was  exchanged  for  the  less  appalling  sign-post  for  legal  notices.  And 
the  public  square  was  not  too  good  in  early  days  for  a  pound.  The  old  alms- 
house stood  on  the  northwest  corner,  near  College  street.  For  its  convenience 
was  a  well  of  excellent  water,  which,  it  is  thought,  has  never  been  filled  up. 

In  1639,  Ne-pau-puck,  a  persistent  enemy,  was  beheaded  here,  and  perhaps 
this  ghastly  yielding  of  savage  ferocity  to  Anglo-Saxon  law  is  the  darkest  picfture 
the  Green  has  offered.  After  the  English  custom,  the  burying-ground  adjoined 
the  church,  and  there  were  laid  the  wise  and  the  good,  the  young  and  the  old,  of  the 
infant  settlement.  Martha  Townsend  was  the  first  woman  buried  in  this  ground. 
Sometimes,  at  dead  of  night,  apart  from  others,  the  victims  of  small-pox  were 
fearfully  laid  here.  The  ground  was  filled  with  graves  between  the  church  and 
College  street ;  sixteen  bodies  having  been  found  within  sixteen  square  feet, 
when  in  1821,  the  stones  were  removed  to  the  Grove  Street  Cemetery,  and  the 
ground  was  leveled.     A  few  stones  are  left  in  their  original  places,  while  in  the 


•a 
w 
« 

PS 

c 

K 


The  New  Haven  Green. 


13 


crypt  of  the  church  may  be  seen,  as  they  stood,  the  monuments  of  more  than  a 
hundred  and  thirty  of  the  early  inhabitants.  Back  of  the  church  are  some  small, 
dark  stones,  decidedly  gnawed  by  time.  Tradition  used  to  ascribe  two  of  these 
to  the  resting-places  of  GofFe  and  Whalley,  the  hunted  regicides  ;  and  elaborate 
interpretations  were  given  of  the  purposely  brief  and  misleading  inscriptions. 
Opinion  now  discredits  this,  and  assigns  the  stone  formerly  called  Whalley's  to 
Martin  Gilbert,  Assistant  Deputy.  But  there  is  no  mistake  about  the  grave  of 
Dixwell,  the  third  of  the  regicides,  and  the  original  stone,  simply  inscribed, 
"J.  D.  1688-9,"  etc.,  is  plainly  seen,  while  in  the  same  enclosure  is  the  monu- 
ment erected  in  1847,  by  the  descendants  of  Dixwell.  He  had  concealed  his 
name  under  that  of  Davis.     An  inscription  on  the  church-wall   tells  us  that 


THE  GREEN. 

From  a  Draifiing  otvneii  by  the  New  Haven  Colony  Historical  Society. 


Theophilus  Eaton,  the  noted  founder  of  the  town,  lies  near.  Over  the  entrance 
of  the  church  are  the  main  dates  and  fadls  of  the  settlement  of  the  town,  and 
many  a  passer  through  the  Green  stops  under  the  shade  of  the  trees  to  read,  and 
get  a  lesson  in  history. 

As  time  passed,  the  Green  was  graded  and  cleared.  Around  it  lived  the 
Pierponts,  the  Trowbridges,  the  Ingersolls,  and  facing  its  upper  side  were  the 
buildings  of  the  infant  Yale.  They  were  very  simple,  and  afford  a  great  contrast 
to  the  elaborate  and  imposing  array  of  to-day,  but  the  forty  boys  were  proud  of 
their  college. 

The  three  churches  on  Temple  street,  in  the  very  middle  of  the  Green,  are 
an  unusual  and  striking  feature  of  a  public  square.  The  North  Church,  now 
called  the  United  Church,  and  Trinity  Church,  were  built  in  1814,  as  well  as 


w 

D 
O 


The  New  Haven  Green. 


15 


the  present  building  of  the  Center  Church,  so  that  the  three  buildings  were 
rising  at  the  same  time,  during  the  troubled  period  of  our  second  war  with  Eng- 
land. It  is  said  that  the  ship  which  was  bringing  in  material  for  Trinity  Church 
was  overhauled  by  a  British  cruiser,  but  that  the  enemy  was  persuaded  to  relin- 
quish that  part  of  the  booty  when  its  sacred  destination  was  disclosed. 

Besides  these,  no  buildings  now  stand  within  the  enclosure,  and  no  further 
encroachment  is  allowed.  One  after  another,  the  various  strudlures  which  a 
too  accommodating  public  allowed,  have  been  removed. 

The  last  to  go  was  the  "old  State  House,"  in  1887.  Built  in  1829,  by 
Ithiel  Towne,  it  was  the  successor  of  several  State  Houses  which  stood  in 
different  parts  of  the  Green.  Its  removal  was  long  discussed,  and  the 
friends  and  the  opponents  of  the  measure  were  aroused  to  couch  their  argu- 
ments in  decidedly  vigorous  language.  Without  the  State  House  steps,  classes 
and  associations  g  o 
hunting  for  a  place  for 
photographic  groups. 
The  classic  columns  of 
this  copy  of  the  The- 
seum,  mxist  figure  in 
many  a  pi<5ture  belong- 
ing  to   by-gone  days. 

In  the  latter  part 
of  the  last  century,  the 
Green  began  to  put  on 
its  present  appearance. 
The  county-house  and 
jail  were  taken  away  in 
1784.  In  that  year, 
a  market-house  was 
placed  near  the  corner 
of  Church  and  Chapel 
streets,  but  in  1798,  it 

was  taken  down.  At  that  time,  the  square  was  fenced,  under  the  diredlion 
of  James  Hillhouse,   David  Austin,   and  Isaac  Beers. 

In  1799,  permission  was  obtained  to  level  the  surface  at  private  expense. 
Evidently  public  spirit  was  stronger  in  individuals  than  in  common  councils. 
About  that  time  the  great  planting  of  elms  began.  The  two  famous  trees, 
which  may  have  set  the  fashion  which  caused  Mrs.  Tuthill  to  call  New 
Haven  the  "City  of  Elms,"  were  brought  to  town  in  1686,  by  William 
Cooper,  as  a  gift  to  the  pastor,  and  were  planted  in  front  of  the  Pierpout 
house,  where  the  Bristol  house  now  is.  There  they  flourished  for  more  than 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years.  They  shaded  the  windows  of  Sarah  Pierpont,  that 
rare  maiden  who  was  "  of  a  wonderful  sweetness,  calmness  and  unusual  benev- 
olence," who  "sometimes  went  about  singing  sweetly,  and  seemed  to  be  always 
full  of  joy  and  pleasure,"  who  "  loved  to  be  alone,  walking  in  the  fields  and 


THK  GREEN,  FROM  THE  REAR  OF  CENTER  CHURCH. 


TEMPI,E  STREET. 


The  Neiv  Haven  Green. 


17 


groves,"  and  whose  charms  of  beauty,  intelleA,  and  good  sense  subjugated  even 
Jonathan  Edwards,  the  intelledlual  giant  of  America.  Some  one  has  said  that 
in  the  shade  of  those 
trees,  these  famous  lovers 
must  have  often  hngered. 
Twenty-three  years  after 
their  marriage,  a  platform 
was  built  under  the  pen- 
dent boughs  and  the  '  'sil- 
ver tongued ' '  Whitefield 
preached  to  the  listening 
crowd  on  the  Green.  The 
Pierpont  elms  lived  for 
more  than  a  century  and 
a  half.  The  last  was  cut 
down  in  1840,  having  at- 
tained a  circumference  of 
eighteen  feet.  Two  mag- 
nificent elms  were  also  in 
front  of  the  house  and 
school  of  the  Rev.  Clau- 
dius Herrick,  where  Bat- 
tell  Chapel  now  is.  They 
too,  were  a  century  and  a 
half  old,  in  1879,  when 
cut  down.  At  the  corner 
of  Church  and  Chapel 
streets,  is  the  most  noted 
of  New  Haven  elms,  the 
"  Franklin  Elm."     Jerry 

Allen,  a  "poet  and  pedagogue,"  brought  it  on  his  back  from  Hamden  Plains, 
and  sold  it  to  Thaddeus  Beecher  for  a  pint  of  rum  and  some  trifles.  It  was 
planted  on  the  day  of  Franklin's  death,  April  17,  1790.  Its  girth,  two  feet  from 
the  ground,  is  sixteen  feet ;  its  height  is  eighty  feet.  This  noble  tree  spreads 
its  graceful  branches  as  a  welcome  and  a  shelter  to  all  who  make  pilgrimage  to. 
New  Haven.  It  seems  a  fitting  gateway  to  the  arcades  that  stretch  athwart  the 
turf  beyond.  In  the  shade  of  the  Franklin  elm  is  the  "Town  pump,"  one  of 
the  old  landmarks  which  thirsty  people  would  regret  to  see  removed.  It  was 
given  to  the  city  long  ago  by  Mr.  Douglass,  of  Middletown. 

In  1784,  the  Common  Council  ordered  the  extension  of  Temple  street  to 
Grove  street,  and  in  1792,  Hillhouse  Avenue  was  laid  out.  Col.  James  Hillhouse, 
ever  enthusiastic  in  public  works,  besought  the  citizens  to  subscribe  for  beautifying 
the  Green  by  planting  trees.  This  was  in  1787,  and  most  of  the  trees  were  set 
between  then  and  1796.     Most  of  them  were  brought  from  the  Hillhouse  farm  in 


THE    DIXWEI,I<   MONUMENT. 


i8 


The  Neiv  Haven  Green. 


Meriden,  and  by  the  testimony  of  eye-witnesses,  they  varied  from  the  size  of 
whipstocks  to  a  foot  in  thickness. 

The  zeal  of  Col.  Hillhouse,  who  often  took  the  spade  in  his  own  hands, 
inspired  others.  The  Rev.  David  Austin  was  moved  to  plant  the  inner  rows  on 
the  east  and  west  sides  of  the  Green,  and  many  stories  are  told  of  the  enthusiasm 
of  boys  in  holding  trees,  of  girls  in  watering  and  tending  them,  all  to  help  on 
the  good  work.  The  cool  and  shady  streets  of  New  Haven  are  a  memorial  of 
this  widespread  interest  in  Hillhouse' s  plan.  Such  men  as  Ogden  Edwards, 
United  States  Judge  Henry  Baldwin,  and  President  Day,  were  proud,  in  mature 
life,  to  look  back  on  their  boyish  participation  in  the  work. 

A  con.stant  and  varied  succession  of  foot-passengers  may  be  seen  on  the 
diagonal  paths.     There  is  no  "  age,  sex,  or  condition  "  which  is  not  to  be  found 


EI,M  STREET. 


there  during  the  day.  Babies  in  summer,  boys  skating  in  winter,  wise  professors 
and  students  with  book  in  hand,  at  all  times,  are  surely  there.  Many  times, 
thousands  of  children  have  been  massed  there,  to  add  to  the  festivity  of  Fourth 
of  July,  Sunday-school,  and  centennial  celebrations,  and  their  choruses  have 
carried  the  swelling  voices  of  vast  choirs  to  the  cathedral  arch  of  Temple  street. 
Probably  no  famous  man  has  ever  visited  New  Haven  without  contributing  his 
presence  to  the  personal  associations  of  this  simple  square.  Nobles,  scholars, 
poets,  divines,  statesmen,  from  all  countries,  have  been  there.  Washington 
decorously  attended  church  at  Trinity.  Lafayette  reviewed  troops  here,  and 
both  were  sometimes  visitors  of  Roger  Sherman,  who  lived  just  above  the  Green. 
After  the  Revolutionary  heroes,  the  place  felt  the  tread  of  Madi.son  and  Monroe, 
of  John  Quincy  Adams,    of  Andrew  Jackson,    of  Van  Buren.     Then  came  the 


The  New  Haven  Green. 


19 


great  men  of  the  civil  war ;  Grant,  Sherman,  Sheridan,   Hancock,   McDowell, 
and  many  more,  have  bowed  to  the  cheers  of  thousands  crowded  on  the  Green. 

Training  days  and  county  fairs  must  have  caused  the  Green  to  smile,  and 
even  to  laugh  aloud,  and  whenever  the  feeling  of  the  town  has  been  stirred  to  its 
depths,  the  Green  has  been 
the  spot  to  which  every  one 
hied  to  show  his  share  in 
that  feeling.  Here  the  loyal 
subjedts  of  George  III.  cele- 
brated his  majority,  and  some 
years  later,  made  public  re- 
joicing over  the  repeal  of  the 
Stamp  A(5l.  Here  Benedicft 
Arnold,  after  Lexington, 
assembled  the  Governor's 
Guard,  to  lead  them  to  Cam- 
bridge, to  swell  the  patriot 
army  ;  here  the  citizens  of  a 
new  republic  crowded,  to 
shout  over  the  surrender  of 
Cornwallis,  and  two  years 
later,  the  gunners  in  long 
green  gowns  boomed  the 
salutes  for  the  treaty  of  peace 
with  England.  Here  passed, 
in  185 1,  the  barouche  which 
contained  all  the  survivors  of 
the  Revolution  who  could  be 
mustered  for  the  Fourth  of 
July  parade.  The  year 
before      that      dirges      were 

played  here  after  President  Taylor's  death,  and,  ten  years  later,  the  Green  was 
whitened  by  the  recruiting  tents  of  the  Townsend  Rifles  ;  and  the  boys  of  the 
three  months'  regiments  made  their  first  bivouac  here  ;  too  many,  alas  !  after- 
ward finding  the  "bivouac  of  death"  on  Southern  fields.  Here  the  New 
Haven  branch  of  the  Sanitary  Commission  was  organized,  and  its  chairman, 
Mr.  Alfred  Walker,  sent  out  two  hundred  and  eighty-seven  boxes  in  the  first 
month.  In  the  State  House,  the  New  Haven  Soldiers'  Aid  Association  met  for 
three  years. 

Under  the  trees,  collations  were  given  to  returning  soldiers,  and  sad  crowds 
assembled  to  witness  the  funeral  honors  paid  to  New  Haven's  sons  :  to  Theodore 
Winthrop,  so  early  sacrificed  ;  to  General  Terry  and  Commodore  Foote,  lost 
when  ripened  by  experience.  Great  was  the  rejoicing  when  "  the  cruel  war 
was  over."  Thousands  assembled  to  cheer  the  news  of  the  fall  of  Petersburg 
and  Richmond.     Then  in  the  midst  of  joy  came  the  blow  of  L,incoln's  assassina- 


IHl':    IKANKIJN   Ki.^r. 


io 


The  New  Haven  Greeri. 


tion,  and  a  greater  and  a  sadder  crowd  hurried  back  to  the  old  Green  than  it 
has  ever  seen  gathered  for  any  other  occasion.  Then,  on  the  steps  of  the  State 
House,  Dr.  Leonard  Bacon  voiced  the  lamentation  of  a  city  bereaved  of  its 
national  head,  and  the  elms  sighed  over  a  horror-stricken  multitude. 

It  seems  safe  to  feel  that,  after  such  a  history,  as  long  as  life  remains  in  the 
city,  the  ' '  heart  of  New  Haven ' '  will  beat  on  in  its  old  place. 


A  NEW  HAVEN  CHURCH. 


The  Center  Church  in  New  Haven  has  been  fitly  called  a  ' '  time-piece  of 
the  centuries,"  and  the  stranger  who  worships  there  may  well  find  his  eyes 

roving  over  the  dial  marks 
on  its  venerable  walls. 

In  mediaeval  times  the 
church  walls  displayed  the 
pidlured  Bible  story  to  all 
who  entered  ;  this  church  in 
the  New  World  bears  a  syn- 
opsis of  a  colony's  history. 

Over  the  entrance  is  a 
concise  statement  of  the 
main  facts  of  the  founding 
of  the  town.  This  tablet 
was  prepared  by  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Leonard  Bacon  before 
he  retired  from  his  a(5live 
ministry,  and,  in  a  small 
space,  it  is  significant  with 
the  story  of  the  ' '  coeval 
beginning  of  the  church  and 
town."  On  a  corner  of  the 
building  is  a  tablet  bearing 
the  dates  of  the  four  suc- 
cessive buildings  which  have 
sheltered  an  unbroken  suc- 
cession of  worshippers  from 
the  organization  until  now — 
1640,  1670,  1757,  1814. 

Thus  this  spot  is  hal- 
lowed by  the  continuous 
public  worship  of  more  than 
two  centuries  and  a  half. 


I'liK    CHURCH,    NEW    HAVKN. 


The  first  simple  strudlure,  a  few  yards  in  front  of  the  present  building, 
was  the  center  to  which  all  turned  to  hear  the  illustrious  London    divines,   or 


CENTKR  CHURCH  KNTRANCK. 


A  New  Haven  Church. 


23 


for  discussion  of  the  questions,  theological,  political  and  social,  which  agitated 
that  miniature  world. 


THE    MEMORIAL   WINDOW. 


Hither  came  up  the  Sabbath  worshippers  at  the  first  and  second  beating 
of  the  drum  ;  and  woe  to  the  careless  or  irreverent  wight  who    was  late,   or 


24 


A  New  Haven  Church. 


THE  •  VOICE  ■  OF  ■  ONE  •  CRYmS   IN   THE  ■  WILDERNESS . 


O  O  C 

JOHN  •  DAVENPORT- BD(0X0N  I62S) 

BORN    IN  ■  COVENTRY  •  WARWICKSHIRE    APRIL- 1597, 
VICAR  ■  OF    5  STEPHENS  ■  COLEMAN  ■  STREET  LONDON  ■  1624. 

FLED  ■  TO  •  AMERICA    FOR  ■  REU6T0US  -FREEDOM  ■  1637. 
LAID    THE  •  FOUNDATIONS  •  OF  -  NEW  -  HAVEN  ■  APRIL  - 1655. 
PASTOR  ■  OF  ■  THIS    CHURCH    FROM    ITS    FORMATION    1639. 
UNTIL- HIS -REMOVAL   TO   THE    FIRST  •  CHURCH  ■  BOSTON  •  1663. 

DIED  ■  IN    BOSTON    MARCH  •  1670 

O  O  c 


absent  from  the  service.  He  was  promptly  rebuked  and  fined,  even  when  pro- 
vided with  excuses  such  as  clothes  wet  in  Saturday's  rain,  and  no  fire  by  which 
to  dry  them  ! 

Here  paced  the 
sentinels  armed 
against  Indian  attack, 
and  here  resounded 
Sternhold  and  Hop- 
kins's version  of  the 
Psalms,  "lined  off." 
Alas !  we  learn 
that  not  the  force  of 
exhortation  and  ex- 
ample, nor  the 
solemnity  of  danger, 
could  altogether 
counteract  the  evil 
suggestions  lurkingin 
"  water  myllions."* 
Here  it  was  that  the  children  were  huddled  on  the  pulpit  stairs  during  the 
service.  Not  even  the  thunders  of  pulpit  eloquence  nor  the  chill  of  a  fireless 
house  sufficed  to  restrain  the  irrepressible  spirit  of  childhood  ;  after  divers 
long-continued  public  efforts  to  stop  the  disturbance,  the  children  were  wisely 
sent  back  to  their  parents. 

Here  it  was  that  the  Sabbath  offerings  in  wampum  and  the  fruits  of  their  fields 
were  taken  to  the  deacons'  seat.  Here  it  was  that  Davenport,  when  it  was 
known  that  the  messengers  of  the  King  would  soon  be  at  hand,  eager  to  search 
for  the  regicides.  Col.  Whalley  and  Col.  Goffe,  uttered  his  brave  words  of  exhor- 
tation to  "entertain  strangers,  for  thereby  some  have  entertained  angels 
unawares."  The  preacher  afterward  proved  the  sincerity  of  his  words  by 
sheltering  the  fugitives  in  his  own  house  for  a  month.  What  coolness,  and 
sagacity,  and  courage  were  exhibited  by  that  tiny  colony  in  that  crisis  !  Here 
it  was  that,  somewhat  later,  the  messengers  of  the  King  were  edified  in  the  midst 
of  their  search  for  the  judges  by  another  Sabbath  discourse  by  Davenport  on  the 
text:  "  Hide  the  outcasts  ;  bewray  not  him  that  wandereth  ;  let  mine  outcasts 
dwell  with  thee,  Moab  ;  be  thou  a  covert  to  them   from  the  face  of  the  spoiler. ' ' 


t  See  Foot  Note. 


*  "  Wm.  Pert  was  warned  to  the  Court  for  taking  water  myllions  one  Lords  day  out  of  Mr. 
Hooks  lot  his  answere  was  that  his  Mr  sent  him  to  see  whether  there  were  any  hoggs  within 
the  fence  and  to  bring  home  a  watter  milion  with  him  he  being  bidd  to  goe  through  Mr.  Hooks 
lott  after  the  Saboth  he  tooke  2  watter  milions  he  said  it  was  the  first  act  of  his  in  this  kind 
and  hoped  it  would  be  the  last.  For  his  unrighteousnesse  &  profanesse  of  his  sperit  &  way  so 
soone  thus  to  doe  after  the  Saboth  he  was  to  be  publiquely  corrected  although  moderatly 
because  his  repentance  did  appeare." — Early  Records  of  New  Haven. 

t  This  and  the  nine  following  cuts  are  fac-similes  of  the  memorial  tablets  on  the  walls  of 
the  audience  room. 


A  New  Haven  Church. 


25 


Fearlessness  so  magnificent  as  that  must  have  made  the  home  government  quite 
willing  to  act  against  New  Haven  when  the  charter  struggle  came  up. 

Among     the    worshippers    in    the 


8orn  in ■Soui-tompton  €iiglm(li60) 
0  A  Winitp  CoUfge  Otfort-teso 
Ccacljer  of  tl)is  Cburfl;   1644-1656 

CDapliim  I'O'OliMer  CTomuielland- 
/naai'etofl-bf  SaxioyTiospihal-  (■ill- 
tlje-clos?  of'H)e  Comroonuiealtl;- 

He-died  lllaTfl)  21  -167* 
Iii8  Ttmaing-rtst-ir -8unl)ill  5iPli 
^  -nonclon 


^^^^^^Ar^l 


t. 


second  house  of  God  was  that   "James 
Davids ' '  around  whom  lingered  a  halo 
of  mystery  ;  for  his  dignity,  his  reserve, 
his  evident  culture  and  means  made  the 
curious  surmise,  what  was  disclosed  after 
his   death,  that   he  was  John  Dixwell, 
one  of  the  three  judges.     His  grave  is 
immediately    back  of  the   church,    and 
there  may  be  seen  what  is  left  of  the  origi- 
nal headstone.     The  inscription  was  : 
"J.  D.,  Esqr. 
Deceased  March  y'=  i8th  in  y"  82"  year 
of  his  age,  1688-9." 
The  monument  erected  in  1847   by 
the  descendants  of  Dixwell,    commemo- 
rates their  appreciation  of  the  kindness 
shown  to  their  distinguished  ancestor  by 

the  inhabitants  of  New  Haven,  and  sets  forth  the  main  fadts  of  his  career. 

On  the  rear  wall  is  a  tablet  in  memory  of  a  man  second  to  Eaton  only, 

Stephen  Goodyear,  the  first  deputy  governor,   who  is  buried   in  London  ;  and 

another     which     explains    that 

until  1796  the  first  churchyard 

was   here,    extending   from  the 

church  to  College  street. 

The  third  building,   known 

as  the  "brick  meeting-house," 

seems   to   have    been   removed, 

not  on  account  of  age  or  decay, 

but  because  increasing  prosper- 
ity demanded  something  larger 

and  better.     The  present  one  on 

the  same  spot",  claims  one's  inter- 
est more  for  its  associations  than 

for  pretensions  to  architedlural 

beauty.      True   to   the  London 

origin    of  the   early   settlement, 

this  church  was  built  with  St. 

Martin' s-in-the-Fields,  on  Trafalgar  Square,  as  its  model. 

At  the  rear  of  the  church  are  more  tablets  ;  one  in  memory  of  Theophilus 

Eaton,  the  first  governor  of  the  colony,  who  died  in   1657,    and  is  buried  near 

the  church  wall,  outside  of  the  pulpit  window.     This  was  the  successful  Lon- 


ir 


W     Ricbolas  Street.     ^ 

5ecot)d  Pastor  of  tbis  Cburct) 
Bono  19  Son)erset5l)ire^Ei>glai)cl.ii)  l603 
a  graduate  of  Oxford  UpWersitY  ir)  l625 
Pastor  of  the  Q)urcY)  19  Taur)tor),An5s. 

1637  to  1657  Associated  with) 

ReVjotjr)  Da'^epport  asleacljerip  tt)5 

Q)urch).5ept26«l»  I659. to  April.  I668. 

aod  tbep  F^5tor  mrtil  1^15  <katt>  Apnl  22i*  l674 

He  wa5  a  Godly.  Modest  apdj  udicious  Aap, 

apd  tbe  first  Pastor  w^)0  died  ip 

^        tbe5CT\/iceof  tbi5Q)urcFj         (^ 


^_ 


26 


A  Neiv  Haven  Church. 


JAMES  PIERPONT 

Born  at  Roitbury  Moss.  Jan^  4th  l639 

a  g'raduatt*  of  Harvard    College  m  1^81 

w»«  ordnined    pastor  of  this  church 

July    2nd   l68  5 

•  nd  having  ministered-faithfully  here  30  years 

died   Nov*'  22nd   IJII 

■  nd  is  buried    beneath  ihis   edifice 

He  was  one  of  the   Tuunders  of  Yale  College 

Hij  gracious  ^ifls  of  fervent  piety 

persuasive    eloquence  and  winning  tnaoneps 

were  devoutly-  spent  in  the  service 

of  his  Lord  and  Master 


^)v^/^^^•^/WV"W^v^M^ 


don  "merchant  of  great  credit  and  fashion,"  who,  in  company  with  Davenport, 

the  friend  of  his  childhood,  led  the  company  of  pioneers  from  London  to  Quin- 

nipiack.  He  was  the  son  of  a 
famous  minister  of  Coventry, 
had  been  in  business,  had  trav- 
eled extensively,  and  had  repre- 
sented Charles  I  at  the  court  of 
Denmark. 

He  had  with  good  advan- 
tage more  than  once  stood  before 
kings;  his  "princely  face  and 
port,"  his  judgment  and  aston- 
ishing equanimity,  his  sincere 
religion,  made  such  an  impres- 
sion on  his  generation  that  only 
death  ended  his  governorship  of 
eighteen  years. 

His  was  one  of  the  houses 
"  better  than  those  of  Boston," 
which  astonished  visitors  by 
their  size  and  comfort ;  his 
' '  Turkey   carpets,    and  tapestry 

carpets  and  rugs,"  his  servants,  and  generally  opulent  style  of  living  are  matters 

of  record. 

The  loss  of  property, 

the     trials    caused     by    a 

phenomenally  ill-tempered 

wife,       by        disappointed 

hopes,  and  by  the  death  of 

his    loved    ones,   were    all 

met  with  the  fortitude  ex- 
pressed in  his  lofty  maxim, 

"  Some   count    it  a    great 

matter  to  die  well,  but  I  am 

sure  it  is  a  greater  matter 

to  live  well." 

The  monument  which 

showed  the  honor  in  which 

Eaton    was    held    by    his 

townsmen     has    been    re- 
moved to  the  Grove  Street 

Cemetery. 

In  the  vestibule  of  the 

church  may  be  seen  the  names  of  the  one  hundred  and  twenty  who  sleep  below. 

On  entering,  one  is  taken  to  the  past  by  memorial  brasses,  and  the  light  streams 


T-0    THC   MEMORV  Qf- 

JOSEPH    NOYES,     O 

BORN  IN  STONtNGTON  OCT.  16,1688.  *  DIED  JUNE  14,1761. 
GRADUATE  OFAND  AN  INSTRUCTOR  IN  YALE  COLLBfiE 
PASTOR  OF  THIS  FIRST  CHURCH 

1716 1761 

His  Ministry  was  marked  by  ecclesiasttc&l 
controversies,  and  by  social  and  political  changes, 
which  led  to  the  formation  of  a  second  Church,  the 
establishment  of  a  separate  worship  in.  Yale  College 
and  the  organization  of  an  Episcopal  Church. 

By  his  sag-acity  and  prudence 
he  retained  to  old  age  the  confidence 
and  affection  of  those  who  remained 
faithful  to  this,  the  Mother  Church. 


O 


HfS  REMAINS  REST  BENEATH  THIS  EOiriCE. 


o 


A  New  Haven  Church. 


27 


Chauncey  Whittelsey 

A  gratliiate  of  and  instructor  in  Yale  College 
a  member  of  the  CoJonial  Assembly  and  in 

other  Public  Trusts  from  1738  to  1756. 

Fifth  Pastor  of  this  Church  frpm  1758  to  1787. 

His  Piety  and  Eloquence  made  him  dear  lo 

his  people.and  with  his  rirmness  and  DDCisJon 

enabled  him  to  discharge  the  duties  of  (he 

pastoral  office  vnth  fiaolity  and  dignity 

during  the  struggle  of  the  Revolution 

He  died  July  24th  VTBl,  in  the  70rh  year  of 

his  a^e  and  the 30th  of  his  thintstry. 


o  o 

in 


His  remains  rest  in  the  crypt  of  this  Church 


D 


through  the  window  which  tells  in  color  the  story  of  the  first  sermon   ' '  in  the 

wilderness ' '  of  New  Haven. 

The  "colonial"  set- 
ting frames  the  historic 
scene.  John  Davenport, 
under  the  cross-vaulting 
of  the  noble  oak,  dressed 
as  befitted  the  dignity  of 
his  position,  in  velvet, 
with  cloak  hanging  on 
his  shoulder,  seems  to 
point  with  uplifted  hand 
to  that  continuing  city 
which  his  hearers  knew 
they  had  not  yet  found. 
The  white-haired  but 
sturdy  Eaton  leaning  on 
his  gun  while  reverently 
bowing  to  the  preacher's 
words,    the   armed  men, 

and  the  women  and  children  ready  to  share  the  peril  and  the  enthusiasm  of 

the  new  enterprise,  give  the  whole  story  of  the  mingled  devotion  and  warfare 

which    characterized    the    New 

England   settler's  life.     At  the 

base,  the  seven-branched  candle- 
stick   and    the    seven    columns 

symbolize   the    famous    "seven 

pillars  ' '  who  were  chosen  in  the 

meeting    in    Robert    Newman's 

barn  in  1639,  thus  beginning  the 

church  in   New  Haven.     They 

were    Theophilus   Eaton,    John 

Davenport,     Robert      Newman, 

Matthew  Gilbert,   Thomas 

Fugill,    John    Punderson,    and 

Jeremiah  Dixon.* 

On  the  right  is  the  record 

of  the  life  of  the  leader  of  the 

colony,  John  Davenport,    B.    D. 

(Oxon,   1625). 

*  This  beautiful  window  is  the  gift  of  Mr.  E.  Hayes  Trowbridge,  in  memory  of  his  father, 
Ezekiel  Hayes  Trowbridge,  a  descendant  of  one  of  the  founders  of  the  church.  The  design, 
so  happy  in  conception  and  execution,  was  made  l)y  Lauber,  and  the  work  was  personally 
superintended  by  Louis  Tiffany.  The  two  thousand  three  hundred  and  twenty  pieces  which 
compose  it  melt  in  the  sunlight  into  a  rich  picture,  and  modern  art  once  more  unites  with  filial 
respect  to  perpetuate  the  memory  of  the  past. 


1786  -  1858 

Pastor  of  this  churrh 

t8l2  -  1822 

Professor  of  ThtoloQv  in  Tate  Collrgr 

1822-  IB^ja 

J\s  Pastor  faithful  to  hii  Hastfr 

anit  briourd  by  his  propit 

^s  Prfarhtrof  tlif  riifrlflsrinfl  Goaprl 

bold  frninit  and  surtfssful 

.As  Studtnt  anilTVarhfr  of  Christian  Thfolojy 

Pnrpminfnt  in  his  Gfnpration 


^  iaYYYYVYvyyyyvxxDtriQOQOQgi- 


28 


A  New  Haven   Church. 


There  comes  to  the  minds'  eye  the  early  home  in  leafy  Warwickshire,  in  the 
days  when  Shakespeare  was  alive,  the  scholar's  haunts  at  Oxford,   the  crowds 

listening  to  the  brilliant  young 
preacher  at  St.  Stephen's,  the  stress 
of  parting  with  home  and  friends, 
the  weary  voyage,  the  high  hopes 
of  a  model  commonwealth,  the 
disappointments,  the  end  of  all  in 
another  home. 

He  seems  to  have  liked  to  have 
his  own  way ;  perhaps  his  dis- 
appointments were  as  deep  as  his 
hopes  were  high  ;  but  he  was  lofty 
in  nature,  high-bred  and  scholarly. 
His  unabated  love  of  study  won 
for  him  from  the  Indians  the  name 
of  "big  study  man."  That  in 
those  times  he  left  more  than  a 
thousand  dollars'  worth  of  books 
shows  how  large  a  place  they  held  in  his  esteem.  He  was  one  of  the  most 
learned  of  the  seventy  English  divines  who  migrated  hither ;  and,  more  than 
that,  was  in  advance  of  his  fellow  emigrants,  for  he  was  ready  to  cast  off  alle- 
giance to  the  King  and  Parliament, 
and  so  to  establish  an  independent 
state.  His  work  was  not  in  vain, 
we  can  see  now,  and  the  impress  of 
his  character  has  not  yet  faded  from 
the  city  that  he  founded. 

On  the  south  side  of  the  church 
is  the  tablet  to  William  Hooke,  the 
friend  and  chaplain  of  Cromwell. 
He  was  in  the  church  in  the  wilder- 
ness for  twelve  years  as  ' '  teacher, ' ' 
an  office  for  some  time  co-existent 
with  that  of  preacher,  a  token  of 
the  thoroughness  of  the  religious 
training  of  the  colonists.  He  was  a 
gentle,  scholarly  man,  who  must 
have  been  also  fervid  in  his  pulpit 

oratory.  His  sermons  may  still  be  read  ;  they  had  such  ear-catching  titles  as 
"New  England's  Teares  for  Old  England's  Feares."  Cromwell  was  his  wife's 
cousin,  and  Whalley  was  her  brother.  The  learned  Hooke,  driven  from  England 
on  account  of  religious  opinion,  was  led  by  his  intimate  friendship  with  the 
Great  Protector  to  return  during  the  Commonwealth  to  that  land  which  he  called 
"  Old  England,  dear  England  still  in  divers  respects,  left  indeed  by  us  in  our 


Lt>onard  Baron 


asfrioanl  of  Jfiii'j  CJirisI  nnd  of  all  mfn 
for  His  siihf.lifrr  prrarhdl  Ihf  Go!>ppl  for 
fifty  ^fiifii  Ufar<;.  Vrarmg  Cod  nntt  iDiuina 
no  ftarHf'.ldr.louiTiij  rlonlroii'irit'i':.   nnd 
halinj  ininultv.fririitl  of  Librrty  and  laio. 
hflprr  ofChrislian   mi«ioii'i,lrarhfr  of 
(fachrrs.pcomotfr  of  pu?ry  good  morh. 
hf  bipsoffl  thf  City  and  thp  Nation    bv 
rfasrifss  lahor^  and  a  holy  life, and  dc- 
Oanrd  pfarpfullv  into  rtsl.bftrmbfr  24. 
issi.irauing   inp  morld  bdlpr  for  his 
hauing  hi'Pd   in  it. 


_UOOOOCXXX)0(XXjOUO(-)UOOUOUOOOO(:g^?^ 


A  New  Haven  Church. 


29 


persons,  but  never  yet  forsaken  in  our  affections."  There  he  was  domestic 
chaplain  to  Cromwell  in  his  palace  of  Whitehall,  and  was  master  of  the  Savoy- 
Hospital,  an  institution  noted  for  its  connecflion  with  the  "Savoy  Confession" 
of  the  Congregationalists,  and  as  having  been  the  episcopal  palace  of  lyondon. 
But  the  sun  of  his  prosperity  sank  with  the  Commonwealth.  After  a  few  years 
the  Commonwealth  was  a  thing  of  the  past,  and  Hooke  spent  the  rest  of  his 
life  in  more  or  less  danger,  resting  at  last  in  Bunhill  Fields,  the  "  Westminster 
Abbey  of  the  Puritans." 

His  parting  gift  to  the  church  which  he  loved  was  his  "home  lot, "  on  the 
southwest  corner  of  College  and  Chapel  streets,  "  to  be  a  standing  maintenance 
either  towards  a  teaching  officer, 
schoolmaster,  or  the  benefit  of  the 
poor  in  fellowship." 

This  was  one  of  the  inducements 
which  influenced  the  choice  of  the 
abiding  place  of  the  struggling,  peri- 
patetic college.  The  church  finally 
leased  it  to  the  college  for  nine 
hundred  and  ninety-nine  years.  It 
was  the  plan  of  Davenport  that  the 
"  rector's  house  "  should  stand  there  ; 
and  there  lived  all  the  rectors  and 
presidents  of  Yale,  from  Cutler  to 
the  elder  Dwight. 

Near  by  is  the  tablet  for  Nicholas 
Street,  the  third  Oxonian  on  the  list. 
His  early  history  was  for  a  long  time 
uncertain,  but  we  now  know  that  he 
was  matriculated  at  Oxford  when  eighteen  (2  Nov.,  162 1  ?),  and  that  he  was  the 
son  of  "Nicholas  Streate  of  Bridgewater,  gent,"  who  owned  "the  ancient 
estate  in  Rowbarton  near  Taunton,"  according  to  a  will  dated  Nov.  i,  1616. 
This  estate  had  formed  part  of  the  manor  of  Canon  Street,  which  belonged  to 
the  Priory  of  Taunton  before  the  dissolution  of  the  monasteries,  and  it  is  now 
absorbed  in  the  city  of  Taunton,  a  name  which  must  have  been  pleasant  in  his 
ears  in  the  New  World. 

He  it  was  who  said,  in  time  of  perplexing  negotiations,  ' '  The  answer 
should  be  of  faith,  and  not  of  fear."  His  son  was  for  nearly  forty-five  years 
pastor  in  Wallingford,  and  the  Augustus  Street  who  gave  the  building  to  the 
Yale  Art  School  was  a  lineal  descendant,  another  instance  of  the  momentum 
given  by  the  desire  of  the  founders  to  make  New  Haven  a  collegiate  town. 

Around  Mr.  Pierpont's  name  associations  cluster  thickly.  He  was  the  first 
American-born  pastor,  he  passed  nearly  all  his  public  life  here,  and  harmony  and 
success  attended  him.  To  be  sure,  he  was  early  and  often  a  widower,  but  he  was 
fortunate  in  seledling  all  three  wives  from  the  highest  families  of  the  little  land,  as 
became  one  who  is  said  to  have  been  nearly  connedled  with  the  Earls  of  Kingston. 


n                                  0                                  0 

j 
1 

|je:;f^jifXg^t*>®sS5?g2<SX*l 

IR  mmn  of 

m^iKiH^^KimiiiiBiii^ 

0           Beloved  AS  A  Pastor          < 
Honored  ASA-TEACHER 

EMINENTASASCHOLAR 
BORNAT'WiLTON  CONN  1780 

Graduated  AT  Yale  CoLLEGE-ngo 

Pastor  OF  THIS  Church  isofa-iaio 

0 Professor  OF  Sacred  Literature  in< 

THE  THE9L0G1CAL    SEMINARY 

Sndovcr  Mass  isio-m.o 

DIED   IN   1852 

=*i2®<®«XSyg^XgXVx*l 

L) 

30 


A  New  Haven  Church. 


That  is  a  pathetic  little  story  about  his  bride,  the  granddaughter  of  John 
Davenport,  going  to  church  on  a  chill  November  day,  arrayed  according  to  the 
custom  for  the  first  Sunday  after  marriage,  in  her  wedding-gown,  catching  cold, 
and  dying  in  three  months. 

We  can  see  the  pretty  girl  entering  the  little,  bare  meeting-house,  flushed 
with  pleasure  and  pride  in  the  new  position  of  wife  of  the  handsome  j'oung 
minister,  a  position  that  she  might  almost  feel  she  had  inherited  ;  and  then,  pale 
with  cold,  trying  to  make  her  neighbors'  furtive  and  admiring  glances  at  her 
finery  take  the  place  of  the  good  log-fire  she  had  left  at  home,  and  unflinchingly 
disdaining  to  outrage  propriety  by  leaving  before  the  service  was  finished.  Poor 
thing  !  She  did  not  foresee  that  that  winter's  snows  would  enwrap  her  in  the 
adjoining  burying-ground. 

But  Mr.  Pierpont  recovered  from  the  blow,  and  married,  two  years  later,  Sarah 
Haynes,  of  Hartford,  a  granddaughter  of  Governor  Haynes  ;  but  she  died  a  little 
more  than  two  years  after,  and  again  he  married  a  Hartford  girl,  granddaughter  of 


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BAPTISM.\L   BOWI,   AND   COMMUNION   CUPS. 

the  renowned  Rev.  Thomas  Hooker,  the  pastor  and  leader  of  the  Connecticut  col- 
ony. She  survived  Mr.  Pierpont  many  years.  For  him  was  built,  by  the  contribu- 
tions of  the  people,  that  spacious  house  which  stood  for  a  hundred  years  on  the 
corner  of  Temple  and  Elm  streets,  and  it  was  as  a  gift  to  the  young  pastor  that 
the  "  Pierpont  Elms,"  long  the  oldest  in  the  city,  were  brought  from  Hamden. 

Mr.  Pierpont' s  surest  title  to  remembrance  is  that  he  was  "  one  of  the 
founders  of  Yale  College."  He  was  one  of  the  famous  ten  ministers  who  made 
the  memorable  contribution  of  volumes  from  their  own  scanty  stock  to  found  a 
college  library.  He  was  indefatigable  in  building  up  that  which  he  had  begun, 
and  it  was  on  account  of  his  persuasions,  exercised  through  Mr.  Dummer,  Con- 
necticut agent  in  London,  that  Elihu  Yale  sent  the  gift  which  made  his  name  a 
household  word. 

But  his  influence  on  the  college  world  did  not  stop  there.  The  alliance  of 
the  Hooker  and  the  Pierpont  families  was  notable  in  itself,  but  was  made  still 
more  illustrious  in  their  descendants.     The  daughter  of  James   Pierpont   and 


A  New  Haven  Church. 


31 


Mary  Hooker,  the  beautiful  and  saintly  Sarah,  married  the  great  Jonathan 
Edwards.  Thus  Mr.  Pierpont  was  the  ancestor  of  the  second  President  Jonathan 
Edwards,  of  the  elder  President  Dwight,  of  President  Woolsey,  of  the  present 
honored  President  Dwight,  of  Theodore  Winthrop,  and  of  a  brilliant  array  of 
distinguished  members  of  the  families  bearing  those  names. 

The  name  of  Mr.  Noyes  brings  up  the  religious  disputes  in  which  party 
feeling  ran  high  and  divisions,  literal  and  figurative,  were  the  result.  Of  him 
it  has  been  wittily  said  that  his  force  seemed  to  be  chiefly  centrifugal ;  but  who 
could  have  been  a  determining  center  for  so  erratic  an  outburst  of  ' '  new  lights  ' ' 
and  "  old  "  as  disturbed  the  theological-political  firmament  in  his  time  ? 

Mr.  Noyes  was  the  son  and  grandson  of  ministers  in  New  England,  and  he 


iJ 


'^  a  portion  of  ,h.„,i5i„.,B,„,i' 

place  of  New  Have-  u.tdfr™^ 

1638  tin  IS21. 

The  earliest  date  oj  a  burial  m-cribed 

on  these  old  stones  is  1687  the  l«ie,t 

1812. 
In  1S21  the  graves  outside  olthf««3ll> 
were  levelled,  the  monuments  ind 
headstones  removed  to  the  Cme  St.  . . 
Cemetery. 


Thi.  Cryp.  - 


,,pstored 


.  Hou*' 


i-,.f  Mee""-"""    ifiSS. 

J  in  166S- Tlx-     ^^a.dicai'-''- 


.\T  THIC   KNTRA.NCK   ()!■'   THE   CRVPT. 

had  ofiiciated  with  great  success  as  instructor  in  the  young  college  for  five  years 
before  becoming  pastor. 

All  these  men  were  scholars,  easily  and  frequently  reading  the  Bible  in  its 
original  languages  for  greater  clearness  in  explanation.  Their  salaries  were 
delivered  to  them  in  such  fruits  of  the  earth,  or  houses  and  lands,  as  their 
parishioners  could  muster  in  that  age  of  barter. 

The  benign  Mr.  Whittelsey  came  with  tranquilizing  effedl  on  the  distraught 
people  ;  but  instead  of  church  controversies,  he  had  to  guide  his  flock  through 
the  momentous  conflicfl  with  the  mother  state,  and  "old  lights"  and  "new 
lights"  burned  together  in  one  steady  flame  of  patriotism.  It  was  to  the 
' '  brick  meeting-house ' '  that  Wooster  marched  his  men  for  a  final  ministerial 


32 


A  Neiv  Haven  Church. 


benedidtion  ;  and  there,  after  waiting  outside  until  informed  of  the  absence  of 
Mr.  Whittelsey,  he  led  them  into  the  church,  ascended  the  pulpit,  and  himself 
expounded  to  his  soldiers  those  holy  words  which  he  deemed  would  fortify  them 
best ;  then,  in  unbroken  order,  they  marched  out  across  the  Green,  and  so  away 
to  war. 

Mr.  Whittelsey  belonged  to  the  "Brahmin  caste,"  being  the  son  of  an  able 
minister  and  the  great-grandson  of  the  noted  President  Chauncey  of  Harvard. 
He  was  "  well  acquainted  with   Latin,    Greek  and  Hebrew  —  —  and  with   the 

general   cyclopaedia   of  literature, and   amassed,    by    laborious   reading,  a 

great  treasure  of  wisdom."  "  For  literature  he  was  in  his  day  oracular  at  col- 
lege, for  he  taught  with  facility  and  success  in  every  branch  of  knowledge." 


ONE    OF   THK    AI.I.JCVS. 
(Showing  the  oldest  stone,  the  one  marked  1687). 

Through  all  the  troubles  of  the  Revolution,  the  Sabbath  service  failed  not 
here. 

Dr.  Dana's  ministry  looked  backward  to  the  eighteenth  century,  forward 
to  the  nineteenth  ;  and  struggles  were  in  view  on  either  side.  To  quote  Dr. 
Smyth,  ' '  Mr.  Dana  was  a  recognized  champion  of  the  old  divinity,  and  behold  ! 
a  new  divinity  was  already  on  the  threshold  of  the  century  upon  which  he  had 
entered." 

The  newcomer  was  Moses  Stuart,  whose  brilliant  talents  made  him  a  power, 
whether  in  New  Haven  or  Andover. 

Dr.  Taylor,  so  remarkable  an  expounder  of  theology  that  the  church  had 
to  surrender  him  to  the  college,  was  one  more  of  the  long  list  of  learned  and 


A  New  Havett  Church. 


33 


profoundly  moving  divines  whose  memorials  are  here.     In  his  pastorate,   these 
present  walls  were  reared. 

And  of  Dr.  Bacon,  born  for  leadership,  what  words  can  be  more  descriptive 
than  the  concise  and  beautiful  lines  that  keep  his  memory  fresh  ? 

He  explored  the  perishing  records  of  the  past  and  brought  to  our  view 
those  ancient  divines,  his  predecessors,  who  live  and  move  again  in  his  pages. 
His  energetic,  enthusiastic  nature  communicated  itself  to  all  around  him. 
From  that  pulpit  he  delivered  his  message  to  his  people,  and  from  it,  after  he 
had  ceased  to  preside 
in  it,  he  looked  forth 
on  the  congregation, 
the  fire  not  dimmed 
in  his  eye,  wrapped  in 
his  fur-lined  mantle, 
reminding  one  of  the 
prophets  of  old. 

The  communion 
silver  belonging  to 
this  Church,  and  in 
present  use,  is  itself 
worthy  of  a  place  in 
a  collection  of  an- 
tiques, and  it  would  be 
hard  to  find  its  equal 
in  this  country.  All 
of  the  cups  are  the 
gifts  of  individuals, 
and  eight  of  them  are 
of  historic  interest 
and  have  been  in  use 
for  many  years. 

Probably  the  first 
gift  of  this  kind  to 
this  church  was  the 
cup  marked,  "  Given  by  Mr.  Jno.  Potler  to  N.  haven  chh."  Records  were  not 
very  complete  then,  but  we  know  that  John  Potter,  was  at  the  famous  meeting 
in  Mr.  Newman's  barn,  in  1639,  and  that  he  died  in  1646,  leaving  an  estate 
valued  at  £2^.  Of  this  amount,  nearly  a  sixth,  £^,  was  diredled  to  the  purchase 
of  this  cup. 

A  pair  of  cups  was  probably  given  in  a  similar  way  by  Henry  Glover  and 
his  wife,  Ellen.  He  died  in  1689.  The  inscription  is  "The  Gift  of  H.  &  E- 
Glover  to  y"^  chh.  in  N.  hav." 

Another  was  given  a  little  later  by  "Mrs.  Ab.  Mansfield,"  daughter  of 
Thomas  Yale.  She  bequeathed  "four  pounds  in  cash  to  be  laid  out  by  the 
deacons  of  said  church  to  buy  a  cup  for  the  use  of  the  Lord's  Table." 


m 

■) 

TOMBSTONE   OF    MAROARKT    ARNOIvD. 


34  A  New  Haven  Church. 

Again  we  see,  "  The  Gift  of  Jn"  Hodson  to  N.  Hav'n  chh.  1690."  John 
Hodshon,  or  Hudson,  or  Hodson,  was  a  rich  Barbadoes  trader,  who  bequeathed 
to  the  church  ^5  in  silver  to  buy  this  cup.  He  is  buried  in  the  crypt  below 
the  church. 

One  is  "The  Gift  of  Mrs.  Abigail  Davenport  to  the  first  chh.  in  New 
Haven.  1718."  Mrs.  Davenport  was  the  daughter  of  the  Rev.  Abraham  Pier- 
son,  of  Branford,  sister  of  Abraham  Pierson,  the  first  rector  of  Yale,  and  wife 
of  John  Davenport,  the  only  son  of  the  Rev.  John  Davenport.  She  died  in 
1 717,  and  bequeathed  "  unto  the  church  of  new  haven,  my  silver  caudle  cup, 
desiring  a  cup  to  be  made  thereof  for  the  service  of  the  church."  Very  for- 
tunately, the  last  wish  was  not  carried  out,  and  the  cup  remains  as  it  was  in  the 
days  of  the  first  rector  of  Yale. 

One  inscription  is  decidedly  abridged  :     "  Abr.  ') 

&      VBroadley." 
Han.    ) 

Abraham  and  Hannah  Bradley  were  the  givers.  He  was  a  deacon,  and  he 
died  in  1718,  bequeathing,  with  consideration  for  both  church  and  wife,  his  silver 
cup  to  the  former  after  the  latter  should  have  ceased  to  need  it. 

About  1670,  Captain  John  Prout  came  to  New  Haven  from  Devonshire,  and 
there  married  Mrs.  Mary  Hall,  daughter  of  Henry  and  Sarah  Rutherford.  In 
her  will,  in  1723,  she  left  to  the  church  "my  two-handled  silver  cup  marked 
^  ^l',,     That   mark  indicates  that  the  cup  once  belonged  to  her  father  and  mother. 

Lovers  of  the  antique  regret  that  several  other  cups  presented  in  a  similar 
manner  were  "  made  over  "  in  1833.  Three  of  those  now  in  use  appear  to  have 
been  made  from  two  tankards  given  by  Mr.  Francis  Brown  and  Mrs.  Sarah 
Diodati,  in  1762.  Another  old  cup  thus  subjedled  to  the  refining  influences  of 
the  melting-pot  was  given  earlier  by  Mrs.  Lydia  Rosewell,  a  daughter  of 
Thomas  Trowbridge. 

They  are  all  two-handled  cups,  of  graceful  design  and  varying  size,  and 
many  of  them  are  delicately  ornamented.  Some  of  them  have  adorned  the 
corner  cupboards  and  have  been  used  on  the  tables  of  the  first  "  colonial 
dames. ' '  There  is  an  enticing  story  that  one  of  them  was  brought  hither  in 
the  Hector  as  part  of  the  household  furniture  of  John  Davenport  himself ;  but 
the  spirit  of  research  is  relentless,  and  the  mark  tells  a  different  tale.  But  that 
very  mark,  while  it  takes  away,  adds  historic  interest ;  for  that  and  five  other 
pieces  were  made  by  John  Dixwell,  the  regicide's  son,  who  was  a  silversmith  in 
Boston,  and  they  bear  his  initials,    "  I.  D.,"   in  an  oval  or  heart-shaped  die. 

A  curious  tale  hangs  by  the  christening  basin,  of  solid  beaten  silver.  In 
the  last  century,  Jeremiah  Atwater,  a  worshipper  in  the  old  church,  wished  to 
repair  his  house,  and  for  that  purpose  bought  a  keg  of  nails  of  a  Boston  dealer. 
On  opening  it,  something  more  than  iron  nails  was  found,  even  a  large  quantity 
of  silver  dollars.  Jeremiah  Atwater  was  honest,  and  tried  to  return  the  dollars 
to  the  seller,  but  he  in  his  turn  disclaimed  any  right  to  that  which  he  had 
neither  bought  nor  sold,  and  so  the  treasure-trove  was  unclaimed  and  unused 
until  1735,  when  Mr.  Atwater  felt  his  end  approaching  and  bequeathed  the  coin 


A  Neiv  Haven  Church.  35 

to   the   church.     From   it   was   made   this   capacious   basin,   twelve   inches  in 
diameter,  three  inches  deep,  and  more  than  two  pounds  in  weight. 

Imagination  revels  in  the  mystery  which  wraps  the  former  state  of  those 
silver  dollars.  Were  they  the  hoard  of  a  miser,  the  birthright  of  an  orphan,  or 
the  booty  of  a  robber  ?  Surely,  if  there  were  any  original  stain  of  guilt  con- 
ne<5ted  with  this  baptismal  bowl,  it  has  long  ago  been  purified  by  the  presence 
of  innocent  little  ones  and  the  prayers  of  holy  men. 

And  yet  one  more  bit  of  romantic  history  clings  to  this  ancient  communion 
service. 

A  certain  Deacon  Ball  was  its  custodian  at  the  time  of  the  British  raid  on 
the  town,  in  1779.  Everyone  was  trying  to  secure  his  most  valued  goods  from 
destru(5lion,  and  Deacon  Ball,  loyal  to  his  trust,  racked  his  brain  to  find  a  hiding- 
place  for  the  church  silver.  At  last,  the  chimney  was  thought  of,  and  his  little 
girl  was  lifted  up  to  secrete  the  precious  charge  in  the  sooty  recesses.  The 
house  was  searched,  Mrs.  Ball's  gold  beads  were  taken,  but  the  silver  was  not 
discovered — and  was  brought  forth  afterwards  for  its  continued  sacred  use. 

And  thus,  enriched  by  the  hallowed  use  of  many  generations,  those  tokens 
of  the  devotion  of  the  forefathers  and  the  foremothers  towards  the  worship  they 
struggled  to  establish  and  to  maintain,  are  still  here,  and  help  us  to  people  the 
past  with  living  figures. 

In  one  respect,  the  Center  Church  is  unique  among  American  churches  ;  it 
has  a  crypt.  It  is  not  like  the  vault  of  the  Stuyvesant  family  under  St. 
Mark's,  in  New  York,  which  is  so  remote  in  the  ground  that  a  long  and  com- 
plicated process  of  removing  flagstones  is  necessary  before  one  of  the  Stuyve- 
sants  can  rest  with  his  ancestors.  This  simply  means  that  when  the  present 
building  was  planned  to  stand  on  the  site  of  its  predecessor,  its  greater  size 
made  it  necessary  to  extend  it  over  some  of  the  graves  of  the  old,  adjacent 
church-yard,  or  to  obliterate  such  tokens  of  the  early  days.  Fortunately,  the 
former  course  was  adopted,  and  consequently,  when  we  have  descended  to  this 
strange  place,  we  find  ourselves  transported  to  colonial  times.  The  light  of  a 
nineteenth  century  sun  streams  through  the  low  windows  over  grave-stones 
which  were  wept  over  before  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  had  achieved  its  supremacy 
on  this  continent ;  before  the  struggle  for  life  had  abated  sufficiently  to  allow 
thoughts  of  a  struggle  for  independence  ;  over  dust  which  had  been  animated  by 
the  docftrinal  quarrels,  the  political  ambitions,  the  religious  hesitation  and  daring 
which  make  the  men  and  women  of  that  time  so  interesting  to  us. 

The  stones  are  thickly  set,  as  if  all  had  desired  to  sleep  close  under  the 
protedlion  of  the  church  they  had  loved  in  life.  Slabs  and  tablets  of  native 
stone,  and  in  many  cases  of  the  finer  foreign  stones,  stand  in  close  array,  but 
in  a  strange,  diagonal  fashion,  at  variance  with  all  the  lines  of  the  building. 
There  is  a  "  method  in  the  madness,"  and  one  is  almost  tempted  to  feel  that 
those  sturdy  souls  disdained  to  lay  their  bodies  in  conformity  to  any  supersti- 
tious ideas  as  to  the  points  of  compass. 

Owing  to  the  generosity  and  zeal  of  Mr.  Thomas  R.  Trowbridge,  who  has 
also  promoted  the  placing  of  the  tablets  on  the  walls  above,  and  who  is  a  lineal 


36  A  Neiv  Haven  Church. 

descendant  of  many  buried  here,  all  has  been  put  in  order  ;  the  roughened  ground 
has  been  smoothed  and  covered  with  cement,  and  the  inscriptions  have  been 
made  legible  where  time  has  taken  off  their  first  sharpness.  One  wanders  among 
these  stone  memorials  with  the  feeling  that  they  are  secure  now  from  wind  and 
storm  for  many  a  year. 

In  such  places,  one  seeks  the  oldest  stone.  In  this  case,  it  is  a  low,  time- 
eaten  slab,  marking  the  death  of  "Mrs.  Sarah  Trowbridge,  Deceased  January 
the  5th,  Aged  46,  1687." 

Not  far  away  lie  the  grandfather  and  grandmother  of  President  Hayes,  and 
here  is  the  first  wife  of  Benedidt  Arnold,  of  whom  it  is  said  that  her  influence 
might  have  kept  him  from  his  dastardly  a6t.  Still  it  was  probably  a  happy  fate 
that  carried  her  away  early,  before  the  world  had  seen  those  traits  which  were 
undoubtedly  quite  too  evident  to  her. 

The  early  members  of  the  Trowbridge  family  were  clustered  close  in  death. 
Of  the  one  hundred  and  thirty-nine  persons  buried  here,  twenty-five  are  Trow- 
bridges.     He  whose  gravestone  reads  thus  : 

"  Here  Lyeth  Intere'' 

The  Body  of  Thomas 

Trowbridge  Esquire 

•  Aged  70  Years  Deceased 

The  22''  of  August 

Anno  Domini 

1702." 

was  the  son  of  the  Thomas  Trowbridge  who,  born  in  Taunton,  England,  was 
one  of  the  original  settlers  of  New  England,  and  his  name  is  perpetuated  to  this 
day  in  his  lineal  descendants.  He  married  Sarah  Rutherford  in  1657.  Near 
him  is  the  Thomas  Trowbridge  of  the  next  generation.  He  ' '  departed  this 
life"  in  171 1,  and  his  wife,  Mary,  did  not  rest  beside  him  until  thirty-one  years 
later. 

And  here  is  "Mr.  Caleb  Trowbridge  who  departed  this  life  Septem'  y*^  loth 
Anno  Do.  1704." 

At  a  little  distance  is  a  curious  stone,  repeating  in  the  warning  "  sic  transit 
gloria  mundi,"  the  lesson  of  a  faintly  sculptured  sun-dial.  Beneath  lies  "  Capt. 
Joseph  Trowbridge,"  who  died  in  1749. 

A  very  plump  and  happy  cherub  smiles  from  the  stone  over  Mrs.  Sarah 
Whiting,  the  daughter  of  Jonathan  Ingersoll,  of  Milford  ;  and  it  seems  to  show 
the  glad  contrast  between  her  "wearisome  pilgrimage"  and  her  "joyful  hope 
of  a  glorious  immortality." 

Everyone  who  examines  old  gravestone  inscriptions  must  be  struck  by  the 
evidence  that  the  next  world  seemed  very  near  to  the  people  of  those  times, 
that  its  joys  grew  real  in  proportion  as  the  discomforts  of  the  present  life  were 
pressing. 


A  New  Haven  Church. 


37 


Several  of  the  monuments  are  in  the  table  form  and  bear  long  inscriptions. 
One  commemorates  the  a(5tive  career  of  Jared  Ingersoll,  a  man  of  distinguished 
position  and  ability,  who  died  in  1781,  "  having  been  judge  of  the  Court  of  Vice- 
Admiralty,  twice  Agent  for  Connedticut  at  the  Court  of  Great  Britain.  He  was 
a  Man  of  uncommon  Genius,  which  was  cultivated  by  a  liberal  education  at 
Yale  College  and  improved  by  the  Study  of  mankind."  Of  these  means  of  men- 
tal and  spiritual  advancement,  certainly  the  third,  perhaps  demanding  the  least 
outlay  of  money  and  yet  often  the  most  costly,  is  open  to  us  all. 

Here  is  another  table,  with  delicately  carved  legs,  bearing  an  inserted  plate 
of  finer  stone  on  which  are  the  names  of  James  Abraham  Hillhouse  and  his  wife, 
"Madam  "   Hillhouse,  the  uncle  and  aunt  of  Senator  James  Hillhouse. 


In  this  quiet  place  is  the  dust  of  three  of  the  early,  historic  pastors  of  the 
church  ;  Pierpont,  "  an  eloquent  man  and  mighty  in  the  Scriptures,  who  being 
fervent  in  spirit  ceased  not  for  y''  space  of  30  years  to  warn  every  one  day  and 
night  w"'  tears,"  the  whole  ending  quaintly  with  "  Anag.  Pie  repone  te  ;" 
Noyes,  "patient  in  tribulation  &  abundant  in  labors;"  and  Whittelsey,  who, 
like  Goldsmith's  parson,    "  exemplified  the  more  excellent  way." 

It  is  interesting  to  note  the  difference  between  the  inscriptions  on  these 
tables  of  stone  which  breathe  the  feelings  of  the  contemporary  friends  and  recount 
those  adls  and  qualities  which  were  important  in  their  eyes  ;  and  those  words  in 
the  church  above,  where,  on  tablets  of  brass,  is  recorded  the  calm  judgment  of 
the  men  of  to-day.  In  the  first,  we  feel  the  sense  of  present  and  personal  loss, 
caused  by  the  removal  from  the  community  of  an  acknowledged  power  ;  in  the 
second,  we  read  the  verdicfl  of  time  on  what  each  has  done  for  the  world's 
progress. 


38  A  Nezv  Haven   Church. 

Below  the  lines  in  memory  of  Mr.  Pierpont  are  the  following : 

"  Also  Mrs.  Mary 
the  3rd  wife 

of  the  above  Rev. 
Mr.  James  Pierpont,  who 
died  November  ist,  1740 

^tatisSuse  68." 

She  was  the  daughter  of  the  Rev.  Thomas  Hooker  and  the  mother  of  Mrs. 
Jonathan  Edwards.  Although  Madam  Noyes  was  buried  in  Wethersfield,  she  has 
an  epitaph  beneath  that  of  Mr.  Noyes.  She  was  a  rare  woman.  The  daughter  of 
the  Rev.  James  Pierpont  and  Sarah  Haynes,  she  had  many  advantages  of  inherited 
respedt  and  of  education,  and  she  was,  withal,  so  wise  and  gracious,  so  absorbed 
in  well-doing,  that  she  was  revered  throughout  her  life,  even  by  those  who  dis- 
liked Mr.  Noyes.  She  was  so  much  interested  in  the  education  of  the  young 
that  she  opened  a  free  school  in  her  own  house,  and  left,  by  her  will,  a  sum  for 
the  future  instrudion  of  children.  She  gave  a  farm  of  three  hundred  and  fifty 
acres  in  Farmington,  Conn.,  to  the  church,  and  the  money  derived  therefrom 
forms  part  of  the  Ministerial  Fund. 

There  are  children  here,  too  ;  three  little  baby  Sybyl  Trowbridges ;  and 
there  is  a  singular  group  of  four  Sarah  I^ymans — one  seventy-five  years  old,  one 
twenty-seven  years,  one  one  year,  and  one  one  month — and  all  dying  within 
two  years. 

Next  to  the  Trowbridges,  the  Whittelseys  were  brought  here  in  greatest 
number,  eight  in  all,  while  there  are  many  Allings  and  IngersoUs,  and  members 
of  the  family  of  Hays,  or  Hayz.  Two  sisters,  daughters  of  Samuel  Broome,  rest 
beneath  one  table-stone,  which  bears  twin  epitaphs  ;  and  near  by  is  the  stone  of 
Mrs.  Katherine  Dana,  the  wife  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Dana,  marked  by  a  slab  of  fine 
slate  with  a  relief  of  an  urn  with  drooping  handles,  all  very  delicately  carved, 
and  as  fresh  as  if  placed  here  yesterday  instead  of  more  than  a  hundred  years 
ago. 

It  is  hard  to  find  poor  spelling,  and  the  epitaphs  are  almost  without  excep- 
tion refined  and  dignified.  The  last  burial  was  in  1812,  that  of  Mrs.  Whittelsey, 
widow  of  the  Rev.  Chauncey  Whittelsey. 

One  unobtrusive  stone  brings  to  mind  a  woman  whose  expressed  wish  has 
been  felt  in  ever  deepening  and  widening  circles — Hester  Coster,  who  is  so 
curiously  connedted  with  the  establishment  of  Yale  in  New  Haven. 

It  was  Davenport's  original  intention  to  devote  the  land  at  the  corner  of 
Chapel,  and  College  streets  to  the  college  which  they  wished  to  have  speedily. 
In  the  vicissitudes  of  the  seventeenth  century,  it  was  sold  and  used  for  a  building 
lot  ;  Joshua  Atwater,  a  merchant  from  London,  and  one  of  the  first  settlers,  had 
it  ;  then  William  Tuttle  bought  it  ;  and  after  his  death  it  was  sold  to  the  widow 
Hester  Coster.  She  died  in  1691,  and,  by  her  will,  left  the  property  to  the 
' '  First  Church  of  Christ,  New  Haven,  to  be  improved  toward  the  maintaining  of 


A   New  Haven  Church.  39 

a  lecture  in  New  Haven  in  the  spring  and  fall  of  the  year."  For  a  few  years, 
the  church  leased  the  property,  but  in  1717,  under  a  power  given  by  her  will, 
sold  it  to  the  "trustees,  partners,  and  undertakers  for  the  Collegiate  School." 

For,  in  17 16,  a  decision  was  made  as  to  the  situation  of  the  college  which 
had  such  a  struggle  for  its  infant  existence  ;  in  choosing  New  Haven,  a  condition 
was  made  that  the  ' '  Coster  lot ' '  and  the  ' '  Hooke  lot ' '  should  be  acquired  by 
the  college  ;  the  condition  was  granted,  and  that  inducement  prevailed  over 
those  held  out  by  other  aspirants  for  the  honor,  and  thus  Yale  was  placed  in  the 
City  of  Elms  rather  than  in  Wethersfield  or  Saybrook.  Thus  did  the  wishes  of 
the  English  divine  and  the  country  dame  unite  in  producing  results  greater  than 
they  could  have  even  dared  to  hope  for.  One  wonders  how  Hester  Coster  looked, 
talked,  and  lived,  whether  she  was  a  forerunner  of  the  strong-minded  woman, 
wishing  to  enforce  herself  on  the  coming  generations,  or  one  of  the  gentle  ones 
who  become  inspired  with  the  desire  of  throwing  their  all  into  the  treasury  of 
the  pressing  public  need.  Just  this  one  flash-light  is  thrown  on  her,  and  then 
all  is  dark.     The  inscription  is  : 

M"  Hester  Coster 

Aged  67  Deceased 

April  y'=  6'"  1691. 

It  would  be  hard  to  speak  of  this  church  without  referring  to  its  intimate 
connedlion  with  Yale  University.  Among  their  grand  plans  for  the  future  was 
always  the  darling  hope  of  the  pastors  and  people  that  the  colony  should  be  a 
college  town.  A  college  lot  was  set  aside  from  the  first,  and  in  spite  of  many 
vicissitudes  and  disappointments,  it  was  that  which  was  finally  used.  Davenport 
was  full  of  zeal  for  education,  wishing  "all  children  in  his  colony  to  be  brought 
up  in  learning."  He  would  have  rejoiced  to  know  that  Connedticut  was  to  have 
the  first  school  fund.  For  a  long  time  the  projedl  seemed  doomed  to  disappoint- 
ment for  reasons  both  external  and  internal,  but  Davenport  never  gave  up  hope 
or  effort.  In  the  fifth  year  of  the  colony  the  settlers  began  to  send  contributions 
of  corn  to  Harvard,  and  Eaton  gave  money  toward  the  buildings  required  at 
Cambridge.  In  1647,  the  attempt  was  made  to  start  the  college  in  the  house 
oifered  by  Deputy-Governor  Goodyear,  who  is  commemorated  by  the  tablet  on 
the  rear  of  the  church,  but  a  remonstrance  came  from  the  Cambridge  people, 
who  said  that  they  could  not  support  their  young  institution  if  the  New  Haven 
assistance  should  be  withdrawn. 

New  Haven  yielded  for  a  time,  but  the  matter  was  annually  discussed  in 
public  meetings,  and  was  always  near  the  heart  of  the  people.  The  impulse 
given  by  Davenport's  fixed  purpose  was  felt  long  after  his  removal  and  death, 
and  well  has  it  been  said,  "  As  long  as  the  college  stands,  the  name  of  John 
Davenport,  that  pioneer  in  the  promotion  of  the  higher  education,  should  be 
remembered  by  its  alumni  with  reverence  and  gratitude." 

When,  after  all  the  discussions  with  other  towns,  the  efforts  of  Davenport 
and  Hooke  and  Street  and  Pierpont  resulted  in  the  three-story  building  on  the 
Coster  lot,   facing  the  redlor's  house  on  the  Hooke  lot,  it  was  natural  that  the 


40  A  New  Haveyi  Church. 

little  band  of  students  should  form  part  of  the  pastor's  flock,  that  the  meeting- 
house should  be  the  scene  of  all  public  occasions  for  the  college,  and  that  the 
growth  and  prosperity  of  one  institution  should  be  linked  with  those  of  the 
other. 

Since  the  removal  of  the  college  to  New  Haven,  until  1895,  ^11  commence- 
ments, all  inauguration  of  presidents,  besides  many  other  ceremonies,  have  been 
celebrated  within  the  First  Church  walls.  So,  for  nearly  a  century  and  three- 
quarters,  the  Center  Church  and  its  predecessors  "have  been  like  college  build- 
ings in  the  memory  of  the  alumni."  Before  even  the  venerable  elms  began  to 
cast  their  shade  over  the  scene,  successive  processions  have  marched  to  the  same 
place,  each  class  to  be,  in  its  turn,  the  absorbing  interest,  and  each  to  take  one 
step  farther  on  in  the  world's  progress,  each  to  add  one  more  to  the  accumulat- 
ing associations  of  the  college. 

Commencement  days  have  swung  from  September  through  August  and  July 
to  June,  the  speakers  have  run  the  .scale  of  the  learned  languages,  there  have 
been  classes  small  and  large,  but  until  two  years  ago  the  tide  of  diploma-seekers 
has  never  failed  to  flow  in  and  out  of  those  church  doors. 

Hither  came  the  proud  parents,  and  hither  flocked  the  pretty  girls  of  suc- 
ceeding generations,  decked  in  all  the  summer  finery  of  each  passing  fashion, 
and  here  for  more  than  a  hundred  years  these  descendants  of  the  boys  and  girls 
who  giggled  on  the  pulpit  stairs  of  the  old  first  church,  whispered  composedly 
and  outrageously  straight  through  the  long  seasons  of  oratoric  display,  until  the 
disturbance  became  so  intolerable  that  the  fiat  went  forth  that  men  and  women 
should  sit  on  opposite  sides  of  the  church.  Thus,  and  thus  only,  was  the  irre- 
pressible loquacity,  aroused  by  listening  to  so  much  eloquence,  repressed. 

Music  was  not  introduced  to  relieve  the  proceedings  until  1819,  and  it  was 
not  until  1846  that  it  ceased  to  be  sacred  in  its  character.  What  would  the 
fathers  have  said  to  the  sound  of  opera  airs  within  those  walls  ! 

Great  has  been  the  change,  too,  in  the  intelledtual  part  of  the  programme. 
We  hear  of  an  early  commencement  called  ' '  splendid  ' '  by  President  Clap,  and 
from  that  time  on,  the  desire  to  secure  places  in  the  audience  has  been  such  that 
spurious  tickets  have  been  sometimes  offered.  To  obviate  fraud  of  that  kind, 
the  mysterious  characfters  since  seen  on  commencement  tickets  were  adopted. 
For  a  long  time,  until  1868,  these  eager  spe<5lators  and  listeners  patiently  sat 
through  two  sessions  in  one  day.  In  1781,  the  walls  of  the  predecessor  of  this 
building  echoed  to  a  Greek  oration,  an  English  colloquy,  a  forensic  disputation, 
and  an  oration  by  President  Stiles,  in  which  he  announced  his  opinions  in 
Hebrew,  Chaldaic  and  Arabic,  followed  by  an  English  oration,  all  in  the  morn- 
ing. In  the  afternoon,  the  indefatigable  and  polyglot  Dr.  Stiles  pronounced  a 
"  Eatin  discourse,"  and  a  syllogistic  dispute,  a  dissertation,  a  poem,  and  an 
oration  gave  the  finishing  touches  to  these  learned  feats.  These  syllogistic  dis- 
putes, which  had  their  day  for  sixty  years,  do  not  appear  on  the  records  after 
1787.  They  must  have  afforded  something  of  that  excitement  which  modern 
students  find  in  the  ball  games.  We  learn  that  in  1730,  they  were  given  from 
the  side  galleries  of  the  church,  the  disputants  hurling  the  polished  missiles  of 


A  New  Haven  Church.  41 

their  logic  from  side  to  side  with  all  the  ardor  of  a  struggle  for  life.  The  orators 
stood  in  the  front  gallery,  and  the  "  audience  huddled  below  them  to  catch  their 
Latin  eloquence  as  it  fell." 

Just  forty  years  ago,  in  1857,  there  were  twenty-three  speakers  in  the  morn- 
ing and  nineteen  in  the  afternoon.  All  this  speech-making  proved  a  weariness 
to  the  flesh,  and  the  male  portion  of  the  audience  was  often  seen  reclining  on  the 
grass  outside  in  the  shade  of  the  elms,  until  such  time  as  the  sergeant-at-arms  of 
the  city  should  muster  his  forces  on  the  Green,  ready  for  the  supreme  moment 
of  taking  the  degrees. 

Then  all  the  hundreds  from  the  different  departments  of  the  university  into 
which  the  "  collegiate  school  "  has  grown  marched  into  the  time-honored  build- 
ing, up  the  steep  steps  of  the  temporary  platform,  each  squad  to  decorously 
receive  the  sheepskins  with  the  Latin  speech,  and  each  to  divide  and  descend 
the  side  steps,  at  great  risk  of  collision  between  heads  and  gallery  beams,  all  to 
be  instantly  replaced  by  the  next  oncoming  squad,  until  all  were  transformed 
from  "seniors"  to  "  educated  gentlemen."  All  that  has  yielded  to  the  varied 
array  of  caps  and  gowns. 

Long  may  the  old  church  stand  on  the  Green,  to  remind  us  of  its  part  in 
history,  to  symbolize  the  character  of  New  England,  inspired  by  the  pa.st,  stand- 
ing firmly  in  the  present,  and  ready  to  go  forward  to  the  future  ! 


^TIOYE  S'TRETT " 

Cemetery,  "newhavek. 


One  hundred  years  ago,  in  July,  1796,  that  public-spirited  citizen,  James 
Hillhouse,  caused  the  purchase  and  preparation  of  the  burial  ground  known  as 
the  Grove  Street  Cemetery.  His  own  body  was  laid  there  when  his  work  was 
over  ;  and  before  him  and  after  him  have  come  to  keep  him  company  so  many 
gifted  and  noble  ones  that  with  truth  we  read  that  "  it  is  the  resting-place  of 
more  persons  of  varied  eminence  than  any  other  cemetery  on  this  continent." 

The  roll  of  honored  names  on  its  stones  represents  brain-power  that  has  stirred 
the  world  and  has  done  much  to  make  the  nineteenth  century  what  it  has  been. 

The  place  seems  dedicated  to  the  fame  of  learning  and  of  noble  lives,  and  as 
it  is  still  in  use  by  the  descendants  of  the  original  owners,  the  crumbling  Pa.st 
and  the  well-kept  Present  meet  there  very  strikingly. 

It  was  the  first  burial  ground  in  the  world  to  be  divided  into  "  family  lots," 
and  every  visitor  must  notice  the  prominence  of  the  family  feeling.  Parents, 
children,  and  grandchildren  are  together ;  those  whose  lives  have  been  spent 
elsewhere  have  sought  burial  with  their  kindred,  while  the  families  that  enjoyed 
sweet  intercourse  in  scholarly  pursuits  and  social  courtesies  are  still  neighbors 
in  death. 


The  Grove  Street  Cemetery. 


43 


The  wall  and  gates  are  severely  Egyptian  in  style,  but  over  the  massive 
pylons  at  the  entrance,  the  words,  "  The  dead  shall  be  raised,"  testify  that  to  the 
ancient  yearning  for  a  life  beyond  the  grave  has  succeeded  the  triumphant  faith 
of  Christianity.  Within  is  the  mortuary  chapel,  and  the  golden  butterfly  on  its 
front  again  points  every  passer  to  the  soul's  release  from  the  burden  of  the  body. 

The  cemetery  is  a  quiet  little  square  of  seventeen  acres,  separating  college 
halls  on  the  one  hand  from  the  stir  of  business  on  the  other.  It  is  a  cheerful 
city  of  the  dead,  with  tall  trees,  high-trimmed,  and  with  evidences  of  scrupulous 
care.  Thoughtful  visitors  are  always  wandering  along  its  avenues,  peering  here 
and  there  for  tokens  of  the  olden  time,  or  for  memorials  of  revered  instructors 
and  loved  classmates. 

Let  us  walk  down  Cedar  avenue,  the  "  famous  row."  Here  are  pioneers  of 
American  scholarship,  such  as  Benjamin  Silliman,  the  elder,  a  man  whose  priv- 
ilege it  was  to  be  indeed  a  Nestor  in  science,  to  open  the  way  to  the  wide  fields 
we  traverse  freely.  The  little,  low,  gray  laboratory  has  disappeared  from  the 
face  of  the  Yale  campus,  but  does  not  every  one  who  sends  a  telegram  owe  thanks 
to  Silliman  and  Morse  that  within  its  humble  walls  they  persisted  in  the  experi- 
ments which  resulted  in  the  great  invention  ?  Professor  Silliman  was  a  keen 
observer,  a  delightful  writer,  a  noble  man  ;  his  name  honors  the  stone  on  which 
it  is  inscribed.     His  son  and  successor,   Benjamin  Silliman   the  younger,  is  in 


THE  HILI.HOUSE  I^OT. 


another  part  of  the  ground  ;  but  in  the  same  inclosure  rests  a  Revolutionary 
dame,  Mrs.  Eunice  Trumbull,  "  relict  of  Jonathan  Trumbull,  late  Governor  of 
Connecticut."  She  was  the  widow  of  the  second  governor  of  that  illustrious 
family  which   contributed  so  much  to  the  success  of  our  war  for  independence, 


44 


The  Grove  Street  Cemetery. 


and  she  was  the  mother  of  Harriet  Trumbull,  who  was  the  wife  of  Professor 
Silliman,  and  who  lies  here,  too.  Thus  two  families  bearing  the  American 
patent  of  nobility,  valor  and  learning,  were  united. 

The  mantle  fell  on  no  less  a  man  than  James  Dwight  Dana,  the  great  geolo- 
gist, who  searched  the  secrets  of  the  coral  groves.  His  slight  form  and  pure 
face,  a  presence  seeming  more  spiritual  than  material,  were  a  part  of  New  Haven 
for  many  years.     Now  he  rests  here. 

Next  is  the  grave  of  Jedidiah  Morse,  the  "  Father  of  American  Geography." 
A  shaft  bears  aloft  a  globe,  commemorating  the  service  that  Morse  did  in  placing 
geography  in  the  realm  of  systematic  knowledge.  Any  one  who  has  seen  a 
copy  of  Morse's  first  edition,  two  stout  octavo  volumes  bound  in  calf,  will  be  apt 
to  deem  it  at  least  as  far  removed  as  a  great-grandfather  from  its  modern  descend- 
ant, the  floridly  embellished  and  tersely  written  school  geography. 

His  work,  which  may  have  been  called  for  by  the  needs  of  the  girls'  school 
which  he  had  in  New  Haven  the  year  after  his  own  graduation  in  1783,  is  many 


TO   JEDIDIAH   MORSE,    BENJAMIN    SIWMAN,    AND   JAMES    DWIGHT   DANA. 


The  Grove  Street  Cemetery. 


45 


times  amusing  when  the  author  least  intends  to  afford  diversion.     The  title  page 
runs  thus  — 

"The 
American 
Universal  Geography 
or  a 
View  of  the  Present  State 
of  all  the 
Empires,   Kingdoms,  States,   and  Republics 
in  the  known 
WORLD 
and  of  the 
United  States  of  America  in  Particular." 
Some  of  the   "particulars  "  are  not  un- 
pleasing  reading  for  Connecticut  people  ;  as 
for    instance — "  Connecticut    is    the    most 
populous  in  proportion  to  its  extent,  of  any 
of  the  thirteen  states.     A  traveler,  even  in 
the  most  unsettled  part  of  the  state,  will  sel- 
dom pass  more  than  two  or  three  miles  with- 
out finding  a  house  or  cottage  and  a  farm 
under  such  improvement   as   to   afford   the 
necessaries  for  the  support  of  a  family." 

Again,  "  In  no  part  of  the  world  is  the 
education  of  all  ranks  of  the  people  more 
attended  to  than  in  Connecticut." 

The  high  regard  in  which  the  legal  pro- 
fession has  always  been  held  here  finds  an 
explanation  in  its  pages.  "The  people  of 
Connecticut  are  remarkably  fond  of  having 
all  their  disputes  settled  according  to  law. 
The  prevalence  of  this  litigious  spirit  affords 
employment  and  support  for  a  numerous 
body  of  lawyers."  But  the  lawyers  were 
not  to  be  left  in  undisputed  possession  of  legal  mysteries,  for  Morse  says  that, 
"In  1672  the  laws  of  the  colony  were  revised,  and  the  general  court  ordered 
them  to  be  printed,  and  also  that  every  family  should  buy  one  of  the  law, 
books ;  such  as  pay  in  silver  to  have  a  book  for  twelve  pence,  such  as  pay  in 
wheat  to  pay  a  peck  and  a  half  a  book,  and  such  as  pay  in  peas,  to  pay  two 
shillings  a  book,  the  peas  at  three  shillings  the  bushel." 

How  intimately  the  pursuit  of  agriculture  and  the  book  trade  were  associ- 
ated in  those  days  !  Morse  sagely  remarks,  "  Perhaps  it  is  owing  to  the  early 
and  universal  spread  of  law  books  that  the  people  of  Connecticut  are  to  this 
day  so  fond  of  the  law." 

This  is  his  testimony  for  the  state   which  had  the   first  school  fund:    "A 


TO   THEODORE   WINTHROP. 


46 


The  Grove  Street  Cemetery. 


To    KI-I    WHITNKV. 


thrift  for  learning  prevails  among  all  ranks  of  people  in  the  state.  In  no  part 
of  the  world  is  the  education  of  all  ranks  of  people  more  attended  to  than  in 
Connecticut." 

Now,  in  1896,  there  comes  a  voice  from  a  son  of  Connecticut,  who  has  spent 
nearly  half  a  century  in 
the  sunny  land  of  cotton  : 
"As  I  grow  older,  my 
opinion  is  stronger  than 
ever  that  the  ancient 
state  has  done  more  for 
the  education  and  general 
advancement  of  all  the 
people  of  this  vast  coun- 
try than  any  other."  Con- 
necticut educators  have  a 
great  past  to  live  up  to. 

The  salutary  influence 
of    the    clergy,    described 
as    "very  respectable,"  is 
noted  as  having  preserved  a  kind  of  aristocratic  balance  in  the  very  democratic 
government  of  the  state. 

What  do  the  members  of  the  medical  profession,  and  tobacco-raisers  think 
of  this  "  act  of  the  general  assembly  at  Hartford  in  1647,  wherein  it  was  ordered, 
'  That  no  person  under  the  age  of  twenty  years,  nor  any  other  that  hath  already 
accustomed  himself  to  the  use  thereof,  shall  take  any  tobacco  until  he  shall  have 

brought    a    certificate 

from  under  the  hand 
of  some  who  are  ap- 
proved for  knowledge 
and  skill  in  physic, 
that  it  is  fit  for  him, 
and  also  that  he  hath 
received  a  license  from 
the  court  for  the  same.' 
All  others  who  had 
addicted  themselves  to 
the  use  of  tobacco, 
were,  by  the  same 
court,  prohibited  tak- 
ing it  in  any  company,  or  at  their  labors,  or  on  their  travels,  unless  they  were 
ten  miles  at  least  from  any  house,  or  more  than  once  a  day,  though  not  in  com- 
pany, on  pain  of  a  fine  of  sixpence  for  each  time  ;  to  be  proved  by  one  substantial 
evidence  "  ? 

Oh  !  the  vicissitudes  of  time  ! 

But  the  laws  of  Connecticut  were  again  revised  in  1750,  and  of  them  Dr. 


TO    I.YMAN   BEECHER    AXL>    .NOAH    PORTER. 


77/1?  Grove  Street  Ceynetery. 


47 


Douglass  observed,  "  That  they  were  the  most  natural,  equitable,  plain,  and  con- 
cise code  of  laws  for  plantations  hitherto  extant." 

Morse  died  in  1826,  after  a  varied  life,  which  brought  him  honors,  among 
them  a  degree  from  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  and  the  office  of  U.  S.  Com- 
missioner to  the  Indian  tribes.  Here  also  is  his  wife,  Elizabeth  Anne  Breese, 
granddaughter  of  President  Finley  of  Princeton.     So  there  is  a  family   history 

in  the  names  of  Samuel  Finley  Breese  Morse,  Morse's 
illustrious  son,  whose  first  wife,  Lucretia  Pickering, 
took  her  place  here  at  the  age  of  twenty-five,  not 
knowing  what  fame  was  in  store  for  her  husband. 

See  this  cross  which  bears  the  name  of  Theodore 
Winthrop — a  name  that  summons  the  tragedy  of  the 
civil  war,  the  blighting  of  a  promising  literary  career, 
all  too  soon  for  achieving  fame  in  battle.  In  that 
gifted  man  met  the  inheritance  of  the  families  that  New 
England  counts  among  her  proudest  possessions  in 
the  past,  the  Woolseys,  the  Dwights,  the  Winthrops. 
The  call  of  Sumter  roused  the  patriotism  in  the 
.scholar's  heart,   and    in  three    months   promise    and 

yH«-H  performance  were  alike  ended.  Much  can  be  read 
V>  H  between  the  terse  lines,  "Born  in  New  Haven, 
%  B|  vSept.  22,  1828. 
C  *  ♦  Fell  in  Battle  at 
j|  ,ym  Great  Bethel, 
Va.,  June  11, 
1861." 

College 
honors,  travel 
in  lands,  old  and 
new,  the  love 
of  friends,  the 
unfolding  of 
fame  in  letters, 
the  glow  of 
patriotism,  all 
led  to  that  supreme  moment,  when,  leap- 
ing up  to  urge  on  his  men,  he  fell.  The 
pathos  of  his  death  casts  a  spell  over  us 
when  we  turn  the  pages  of  ' '  Cecil 
Dreeme"  and  "Edwin  Brothertoft,"  of 
"  L,ove  and  Skates,"  and  of  those  descrip- 
tions in  the  Atlantic  of  that  memorable  first  "^^  J"«^'  ^^^  ^.ovf.i.^.. 
march  to  Washington,  which  made  him  speak  to  the  whole  nation  after  his 
pen  and  sword  were  laid  aside  forever. 

Next  is  a  name  no  less  famous,  that  of  Eli  Whitney,  ' '  the  inventor  of  the 
cotton-gin,  1765-1825. 


TO    NOAH    WEBSTER. 


48 


The  Grove  Street  Cemetery. 


the     kind-hearted,    swift-footed, 


We  all  know  what  Horace  Greeley  has  so  strikingly  set  forth,  that  the 
United  States  and  the  civilized  world  are  richer  because  the  inventive  genius 
and  courteous  helpfulness  of  that  young  Yale  man  offered  a  friendl}^  hand  to 
southern  labor.  What  modern  commerce  would  be  without  the  cotton-gin,  it  is 
hard  to  say. 

Lyman  Beecher,  great  father  of  great  chil- 
dren, lies  near,  beneath  a  block  of  stone  bearing 
a  cross  in  relief;  and  next  are  the  Taylors,  Dr. 
Taylor  of  theological  renown,  and  his  daughter, 
Marj',    the   wife  of  Noah  Porter.     She  is  beside 

clear-headed, 
eleventh 
president  of 
Yale.  And 
in  this 
neighbor- 
h  o  o  d  of 
death  is  the 
grave  of 
Noah  Web- 
ster, 1758- 
1842.  Veri- 
ly, he  "be- 
ing dead, 
yet  speak- 
eth,"  for  do 
not  millions 
of  us  im- 
plicitly obey  TO  mary  ci.ap  wooster. 
his  orders  given  in  the  famous  spelling-book, 
and  in  the  "Unabridged,"  inspired  by  him 
with  a  life  which  keeps  it  in  vigorous  growth 
while  generations  pass  away  ?  The  speller 
attained  a  sale  of  sixty-two  million  copies 
long  ago ;  and  although  his  royaltj'  was 
only  a  cent  a  copy,  that  supported  his  family 
for  years. 

Webster  was  a  typical  son  of  Connecti- 
cut in  his  versatility.  Of  Hartford  birth,  a 
graduate  of  Yale,  he  was  teacher,  lawyer, 
judge,  politician,  magazine  editor,  author  of 
text-books,  one  of  the  founders  of  Amherst,  and  lexicographer,  as  occasion  de- 
manded. The  renown  of  his  dictionary  perhaps  causes  us  to  forget  that  his 
words  were  a   prime  mover  for   the  call  for  the  convention  which  gave  to  the 


TO   TIMOTHY   DWIGHT. 


The  Grove  Street  Cemetery. 


49 


United  States  their  revered  constitution.  He  lived  in  sight  of  his  final  resting- 
place. 

On  the  opposite  side  is  the  grave  of  Joel  Root,  the  model  of  high-bred 
integrity,  whose  adventures  in  a  business  voyage  of  three  years  around  the 
world  in  the  first  years  of  the  century  read  like  a  second  Robinson  Crusoe. 

.  Turning  to  another  avenue,  we 

find  an  educator  of  a  later  generation, 
but  of  wide  influence,  John  Epy 
Lovell,  ' '  founder  and  teacher  of  the 
I,ancasterian  school."  He  was  born 
in  1795,  and  lacked  but  three  years  ot 
a  century  of  life  when  he  died  in 
1893.  For  years  he  carried  out  in 
New  Haven  his  peculiar  ideas  of 
methods  of  instruction,  and  although 
the  "monitor  system"  is  an  educa- 
To  THEODORE  DwiGHT  WOOI3EY.  tioual  fashiou  long  since  laid  aside, 

the  memory  of  the  genial  and  talented  teacher  is  still  green.  In  1889,  Mr. 
Lovell  appeared  in  the  procession  which  celebrated  the  two  hundred  and  fiftieth 
anniversary  of  the  founding  of  the  town.  Every  eye  was  turned  on  the  veteran, 
who,  in  his  ninety-fourth  year,  was  already  in  the  halo  of  the  past.  He  sleeps 
beneath  granite 
blocks  picturesquely 
piled,  a  monument 
given  by  an  associa- 
tion of  his  pupils. 

These  stones 
commemorate  the 
Clap  family,  "The 
Reverend  and 
learned  Mr.  Thomas 
Clap,  late  President 
of  Yale  College,"  in 
days  so  far  away 
(1740-1765),  thathe 
could  show  his 
enterprise  by  caus- 
ing the  first  cata- 
logue to  be  prepared 

for  the  library,  that  library  so  asssociated  with  the  foundation  and  continued 
life  of  the  college,  by  compiling  the  college  laws  (in  Latin),  the  first  book 
printed  in  New  Haven,  and  by  securing  the  new  charter  with  the  style,  "  the 
President  and  Fellows  of  Yale  College  in  New  Haven  ;  "  Mrs.  Clap,  and  their 
daughter,  Mary  Clap  Wooster,  "widow  of  Gen.  David  Wooster,  of  the  Revo- 
lutionary Army." 


To    PROFESSORS    I,OOMIS,    TWINING,    AND   HADI<EY. 


50 


The  Grove  Street  Cemetery. 


She  was  the   "Madam    Wooster"    whose   namesake    is   the    New   Haven 

Chapter  of  the  Daughters  of  the  Revolution. 

Another  Yale  president  is  in  this   scholastic   ground,   the  first  President 

Dwight.     Of  all  the  praiseworthy  acts  of  his  able  career  not  one  was  more 

laudable  than  begin- 
ning   the    work    of 

breaking   down   the 

old-fashioned    b  a  r  - 

riers    which    separ- 
ated  classes   and 

facul  ty .  His 

' '  reign  ' '     naturally 

trebled   the  number 

of  students. 

Six   headstones 

in  a  row,  each  one 

bearing  the  name  of 

Olmsted,     tell    of 

death's    ravages    in 

one  family  of  sons. 
The     father, 

Denison      Olmsted,  '"'  "'^'•'^  ^"^'^"^  ^^°  i-kon.^rd  bacon. 

the  loved   professor  of  Natural  Philosophy  and  Astronomy,  before  the  days  of 

specialists,  and  five  sons,  lie  here. 

Of  the  sons,  all  but  one  Yale  men,  one 
died  at  twenty-two,  two  at  twenty-five,  one 
at  thirty,  and  one  at  thirty-five. 

Near  the  rear  wall  is  the  burial-place  of 
another  revered  Yale  president,  Theodore 
Dwight  Woolsey.  Perhaps  the  extent  of  his 
fame  as  a  scholar  was  never  better  seen  than 
when  one  of  the  Chinese  embassies  brought 
over  as  a  gift  to  him  his  work  on  International 
Law  translated  into  Chinese.  Most  pathetic 
is  the  inscription  over  the  graves  of  the  two 
daughters  who  died  of  Syrian  fever  in  Jerusa- 
lem, only  two  days  apart.  "In  their  deaths 
they  were  not  divided." 

Three  great  scholars  repose  together  in 
death  even  as  they  labored  together  in  life, 
Professor  Twining,  Professor  Hadley,  Pro- 
fessor LrOomis.  Professor  Twining  made  the 
first  railroad  survey  in  the  state,  and  therefore 

one  of  the  first  in  the  country.     It  was  in  1835,  for  the  Hartford  and  New  Haven 

railroad.     The  books  which  Greek  and  mathematical  students  have  pored  over 


■(."ixSk'S'.mM-- 


THE  GERRY  MONUMENT. 


The  Grove  Street  Cemetery. 


51 


TO    GENRRAI,   TKRRV. 


for  so  many  years  have  been  the  best  monument  for  Hadley  and  L,oomis.  After 
the  latter' s  burial,  there  came  warning  telegrams  from  the  chief  of  the  New 
York  police,  and  a  strict  guard  was  necessary  every  night  until  the  heavy  base 
of  the  monument  was  laid,  and  there  was  no  further  opportunity  to  pry  into  the 

secrets  of  that  powerful 
brain. 

' '  Leonard  Bacon  ! ' ' 
What  memories  his 
name  brings  up  of  work 
and  inspiration  for  more 
than  fifty  years  of  pas- 
toral life  in  New  Haven. 
Some  one  said  of  him 
that  while  really  a  man 
of  low  stature,  he  always 
gave  the  impression  of 
being  of  commanding 
height.  Such  was  the 
effect  of  his  master- 
mind. 

"After  hfe's  fitful 
fever,"  here  sleeps  his  gifted  and  disappointed  sister,  Delia  Bacon,  the  prophetess 
of  the  Baconian  theory  of  the  authorship  of  Shakespeare's  plays.  A  cro.ss  is 
the  symbol  above  her,  with  these  words,  "  'So  he  bringeth  them  to  their  desired 
haven.'  In  grate- 
ful remembrance, 
this  monument  is 
erected  by  her 
former  pupils." 

Rest,  now, 
perturbed  spirit, 
in  that  realm 
where  perplex- 
ities are  resolved 
into  glad  cer- 
tainty. 

Here  is 
Charles  Good- 
year, the  great 
inventor,  one  of 
America's  bene- 
factors. He  was 
preeminent  in  the 

talent  which  is  a  chief  characteristic  of  Connecticut  men,  and  his  struggles  for 
nearly  thirty  years  with  poverty  and  debt  and  injustice  while  he  wrestled  with 


To    ADMIRAL    FOOTK. 


52 


The  Grove  Street  Cemetery. 


TO  JOSEPH  EARL  SHEFFIEI<D. 


the  problem,  the  solution  of  which  transformed  caoutchouc  into  vulcanized  rub- 
ber in  its  hundreds  of  useful  forms,  border  on  heroism.  Like  many  other  great 
inventors,  he  was  rudely  treated  by  Fortune,  who  bade  him  take  fame  and 
foreign  medals,  while  she  poured  the  earnings  of  his  brain  into  the  hands  of 
those  who  borrowed  his  ideas. 

General  Terry  and 
Admiral  Foote,  our  heroes 
in  the  civil  war,  are  here  ; 
and  reminders  of  the  Rev- 
olution are  not  lacking. 
The  days  of  alarm  and  dis- 
tress when  the  rough 
"redcoats"  were  maraud- 
ing in  the  streets  of  the 
quiet  little  town,  are 
brought  to  mind  by  the 
time-worn  monument  of 
the  great-grandfather  of 
ex-Gov.  English,  bearing 
the  words,  "Benjamin 
English,  died  5  July,  1779, 
aged  74.  He  was  stabbed  by  a  British  soldier  when  sitting  in  his  own  house." 
In  another  part  of  the  ground  is  the  grave  of  another  aged  man  who  met 
death  in  a  similar  way  during  the  same  raid,  Nathan  Beers,  the  father  of  the 
Revolutionary  soldier.  Deacon  Nathan  Beers.  Let  us  be  thankful  that  the  days 
of  arbitration  are  at  hand. 

Here,  too,  rests  Colonel 
David  Humphrey,  the  trusted 
aid-de-camp  of  Washington. 

The  old  New  Haven 
families,  the  Trowbridges,  the 
Ingersolls,  the  Hillhouses, 
have  come  here  for  their  long 
home  ;  of  governors  who  have 
honored  the  old  state,  such  as 
Governor  Dutton  and  Gover- 
nor Baldwin,  the  defender  of 
the  famous  Amistad  captives ; 
of  learned  professors,  such  as 
Thacher,  the  Latin  scholar, 
and  Eaton,  the  botanist ;  of  men  eminent  in  all  professions,  such  as  Dr.  Levi 
Ives,  "the  beloved  physician,"  Henry  R.  Storrs,  the  jurist  and  orator;  of 
benefactors,  of  patriots,  the  list  grows  as  fast  as  one  walks  about.  William 
Dwight  Whitney,  whose  fame  as  a  philologist  and  Sanskrit  scholar  is  world- 
wide, and  who  was  a  member  of  so  many  learned  foreign  societies  that  a  whole 


To  ROGER  SHERMAN. 


The  Grove  Street  Cemetery.  53 

alphabet  seemed  to  follow  his  name,  has  taken  his  place  among  the  illustrious 
dead.  Joseph  Earl  Sheffield  lies  in  sight  of  his  home  on  Hillhouse  avenue  and 
of  the  buildings  of  the  lusty,  ever  growing  Scientific  School  which  was  his 
noble  gift  to  Yale.  His  example  of  bestowing  what  he  had  to  give  while  he 
was  alive  to  watch  the  growth  of  his  plan  ought  to  be  followed  by  millionaire 
philanthropists  who  wish  to  secure  his  success.  The  grandfather  of  President 
Cleveland,  the  Rev.  Aaron  Cleveland,  was  buried  on  Linden  Avenue,  in  18 15. 
The  bones  of  New  Haven's  first  governor  lie  near  the  Center  church,  where 
the  earliest  interments  were  made,  but  the  monument  is  here  with  this  inscrip- 
tion : 

"  Thkophhus  Eaton,  Esq.,  Governor. 
Deceased  Jan.  7,  1657,  Aetati.s,  67. 

Eaton,  so  famed,  so  wise,  so  meek,  so  just. 

The  Phoenix  of  our  world  here  hides  his  du.st. 

This  name  forget.  New  England  never  must." 

Wherein  the  sentiment  is  more  laudable  than  the  poetry. 

Is  there  a  name  more  honored  in  Connedticut's  revolutionary  history  than 
that  of  Roger  Sherman,  one  of  the  immortal  five  who  presented  the  Declaration  ? 

He  is  buried  here.  The  lines  on  his  monument  show  that  his  fellow-citizens 
left  him  little  time  for  private  life.  He  was  "  Mayor  of  the  city  of  New  Haven, 
and  senator  to  the  United  States."  "  He  was  nineteen  years  an  Assistant  and 
twenty-three  a  Judge  of  the  Superior  Court,  in  high  Reputation. 

He  was  Delegate  in  the  first  Congress,  signed  the  glorious  A6t  of  Inde- 
pendence, and  many  years  displayed  superior  Talents  and  Ability  in  the  National 
Legislature.  He  was  a  Member  of  the  general  Convention,  approved  the  federal 
Constitution,  and  served  his  Country  with  fidelity  and  honor  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  and  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States." 

We  know  that  there  is  no  flattery  in  the  quiet  eulogium  that  follows  : 

"  He  was  a  man  of  approved  Integrity,  a  cool,  discerning  Judge,  a  prudent, 
sagacious  Politician,  a  true,  faithful,  and  firm  Patriot." 

Full  of  pathetic  suggestions  is  the  "  college  lot,"  where,  in  days  gone  by, 
those  who  died  in  the  midst  of  their  course,  away  from  home,  were  laid,  having 
found  their  long  home  in  the  town  to  which  they  came  with  aspirations  for  lay- 
ing the  foundations  of  great  careers. 

Most  of  these  monuments  are  of  like  pattern  and  have  been  placed  there  by 
classmates.  The  inscriptions  nearly  all  express  in  Latin  the  regret  of  these  class- 
mates, and  have  dates  of  long  ago,  when  it  was  necessary  that  death  and  burial 
should  occur  in  the  same  place  ;  but  one  is  recent,  1892,  and  is  the  memorial  of 
Kakichi  Senta,  Japan.  An  ocean  and  a  continent  separate  him  from  his  gentle, 
dark-eyed  friends  in  that  wonderful  West  of  the  Orient.  On  the  tombstone  of 
little  Susie  Bacon,  who  died  in  Switzerland  in  her  fourth  year,  are  her  touching 
last  words,    "  Der  liebe  Gott  liebt  Susie,  und  ich  soil  Ihn  sehen." 

There  are  not  many  of  the  mirth-provoking  epitaphs  which  one  sometimes 


54  T^f^^  Grove  Street  Cemetery. 

sees  in  old  churchyards.  Sidney  Hull  and  his  five  wives  may  draw  a  sigh  from 
some,  a  smile  from  others. 

But  one  of  the  most  interesting  features  of  this  burial  ground  is  the  long  line 
of  ancient  headstones  resting  against  the  wall.  A  great  part  of  two  sides  is 
occupied  by  these  memorials  of  the  colonial  dead,  brought  hither  in  1820,  when 
the  graves  in  the  Green  were  leveled.  Here  we  read  history  by  fascinating  hints 
and  snatches.  The  stones  are  sometimes  of  slate,  but  oftener  of  sandstone,  which 
has  proved  in  many  cases  a  treacherous  record-bearer  by  flaking  off  in  layers, 
thus  leaving  a  painful  blank  where  once  appeared  the  name  and  station  of  him 
' '  To  the  Memory  ' '  of  whom  the  stone  was  raised.  Many  of  them  are  bordered 
by  scrolls  and  vines,  and  are  surmounted  by  cheerful  death's  heads  and  cherubim. 
Some  are  the  rude  efforts  of  unaccustomed  hands,  trying  to  preserve  the  memory 
of  dear  ones,  when  it  was  difficult  to  carve  even  a  few  letters,  and  some  show 
that,  as  years  passed,  the  stone-cutter  had  taken  his  place  as  a  recognized  work- 
man. By  the  irony  of  fate  the  date  for  which  a  curious  visitor  looks  most  eagerly 
is  often  the  very  part  of  the  inscription  which  is  illegible,  but  the  stones  belong 
to  the  seventeenth  and  early  eighteenth  centuries. 

In  those  days  they  were  strenuous  to  insist  on  the  social  standing  betokened 
by   "Mr."  and  "Mrs."   as, 

"Mr.  David  Atw.a^ter, 

A  noted  apothecary,  and  a  fimi  advocate  for  his  country,  in  defense  of  which  he  fell 

a  volunteer  in  the  battle  at  Gunipo  Hill,  1777." 

Another  shows  that  phonetic  spelling  had  its  adherents, 

"Joseph  Aij.sup 
Deseased  in  ye  42  yeare  of  hi.s  age,  January  the  12,  1691." 

There  are  many  double  stones  and  almost  all  have  rounded  tops. 
Here  is  a  "doleful  sound"  from  the  stone  of  Mrs.  Betty  Colt,  who  died  in 
1765,  aged  twenty-two  : 

"  Passenjers,  as  you  pass  by, 
Behold  ye  place  where  now  i  lie, 
As  you  are  now,  so  once  was  i. 
As  i  am  now,  so  j-ou  must  be. 
Prepare  to  die  &  follow  me." 

Sometimes  the  words  proved  too  much  for  the  sculptor  and  he  was  forced  to 
divide  such  a  word  as  "d3'ed,"  placing  one  part  on  one  line  and  the  other  on 
another. 

Allings  and  Atwaters  and  Mixes  and  Bradleys  and  Beechers  abound,  and 

the  military  titles  of  those  who  died  in  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  centur}- 

remind  us  that  peaceful  homes  were  not  secured  without  fighting.     A  glimpse 

of  the  loyalty  to  the  old  home  is  seen  in  the  following : 

"  In  memory  of  Mr.  Josiah  Woodhouse,  who  was  born  in  ye  city  of  London,  in  old  England, 
and  died  in  New  Haven,  vSept.  7,  1761,  in  his  43d  year." 

Some  of  these  old  stones  have  been  broken  in  half  lengthwise,  and  when  one 
portion  has  entirely  disappeared,  the  remaining  half  gives  tantalizingly  partial 


The  Grove  Street  Cemetery. 


55 


record.     For  example,  of  some  nameless  one,  we  have  yet  this  tribute  of  aching 

hearts : 

"  Aged  19  years 
Beloved  in  life 
And  much  bemoaned  in  death." 

The  sole  legend  on  another  is,   "A.  B."     On  another, 

"R.,  1686,  F.'p." 

These  alphabetical  memorials  were  full  of  meaning  once  to  some  fond  ones  ; 
now  they  only  say  that  some  one  died,  and  some  one  lamented.  One,  like  a  part 
of  a  puzzle,  gives  us  an  opportunity  to  guess  the  whole  : 

James  Rice 

friend  of 

nd  religious  order 

emed  and  useful 

in  his  life 

death  sincerely  lamented. 

He  died 

the  yellow  fever 

September  29,  1 794. 

65th  year  of  his  age. 

Happy  the  man,  who,  when  his  life's  records  are  shattered,  can  leave  frag- 
ments that  point  to  such  a  whole  ! 

The  sexton's  bell  rings,  the  gates  will  close,  and  we  leave  the  honored  dead 
to  their  eternal  peace  in  the  midst  of  that  city  which  they  blessed  by  their  lives. 


JAMES  HILLHOUSE. 
From  the  painting  by  V^anderlyn. 
'  But  in  those  hours  when  others  rest^ 
Kept  public  care  upon  his  breast.''' — Sachem's  IVootf. 


Perhaps  the  charm  of  Hill- 
house  Avenue  may  lie  in  the  very 
limitations  of  space  which  give  it  an 
air  of  daintiness  and  finish.  Not 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  mile  long, 
it  lies  between  the  Hillhouse  grounds 
at  the  head,  and  the  Historical  Soci- 
ety's building,  the  gift  of  Mr.  Henry 
English,  at  the  foot ;  and  the  eye, 
at  one  glance,  takes  in  the  whole 
arcade  of  the  graceful,  shadowy  elms 
that  lift  their  glorious  crowns  to  the 
sky.  In  1792,  Senator  James  Hill- 
house  laid  it  out,  one  hundred  and 
five  feet  wide,  through  the  "Hill- 
house  Farm,"  and  he  planted  the 
elms  which  for  all  these  years  have 
made  a  royal  canopy.  A  young 
man  in  the  employ  of  Mr.  Hillhouse 
drove  the  stakes  and  helped  to  set 
out  the  trees.  That  young  man 
was  proud  to  recall  the  fact  when 
he  walked  beneath  those  elms  as 
President  Day,  of  Yale.  Time  has 
justified  the  foresight  of  the  owner 
of  the  land  ;    the  homes  of  wealth 


Hillhouse    Avenue. 


57 


•  ...i?e"^^- 


% 

if!* .  ^   - 

V 

W^^*       \ 

M 

v-',K-^     ■i^^. 

fflj&^^J^ 

^ 

^ 

i 

v'-^l^y^-.:-  '  ^ 

Hf- 

'  -M 

1 

i 

^-i  :':',"■,■''■ 

r 

<^^" 


THK   HII.I.HOUSE  PLACE,    SACHKM  ~       

U'it/t  the  kind  pej-missioH  of  the  Kim  City  Nursery  Co. 


and  of  learning  are  on  either  hand,  and  in  this  "cathedral  city,   whose  streets 
are  aisles,"  there  is  no  street  more  beauti- 
ful than  this. 

Just  as  his  early  home,  the  house  of 
his  uncle,  James  Abraham  Hillhouse, 
was  at  the  head  of  Church  street,  so  Mr. 
Hillhouse' s  own  dwelling,  now  gone,  was 
then  at  the  head  of  Temple  street,  and  he 
moved  away  a  part  of  it,  so  that  the  street 
could  be  extended  to  join  the  Hartford 
turnpike  where  Temple  and  Church  meet 
in  Whitney  avenue.  From  that  house, 
when  an  angry  mob  threatened  to  tear 
down  the  Medical  School,  then  in  what  is 
now  Sheffield  Hall,  because  the  body  of  a 
beautiful  young  woman,  stolen  from  her 
grave,  was  supposed  to  be  secreted  there, 
Mr.  Hillhouse  went  forth  in  the  majesty 
of  the  trusted  and  trustworthy  citizen — and 
the  surging,  infuriated  crowd  was  still.  historical  socikty's  biildino. 


58 


Hillhouse  Avemie. 


For   the  mansion   of  his   son,  James  A.   Hillhouse,    the  poet,  he  seledled 
the    high    ground,    which    rose    among    the     oaks,    and     there    were     spent 


^  THE  SHEFFIEI.D  PI<ACE. 

the  declining  years  of  his  own  life.  Hillhouse  avenue,  which  was  first 
called  Temple  avenue,  was  private  property,  and,  until  1862 — when  the 
city  assumed  jurisdi6lion — Mayor  Skinner  and  Mr.  William  Hillhouse,  the 
nephew  whose  house  is  near  the  gate,  used  annually,  on  some  Odlober  night, 

to  stretch  the  chain 
across  the  entrance, 
in  compliance  with 
the  law. 

On  one  corner, 
as  you  approach, 
is  the  pi6turesque 
"Cloister,"  a  build- 
ing not  wholly  con- 
secrated to  ascetic 
vigils  ;  on  the  other, 
the  vacant  space, 
which  was  the  old 
Botanical  Garden,  is 
dignified  by  the 
"  Nathan  Beers  "  elm,  the  tallest  and  mightiest  of  all  New  Haven  elms.     It  was 


THE   RAII^ROAD   CUT. 


Hillhouse  Avenue. 


59 


planted  by  the  noble  man  whose  name  it  bears.  In  front  of  the  "  Garden  "  is  a 
well,  now  covered  by  the  turf  that  borders  the  sidewalk,  and  it  probably  be- 
longed to  the  old  house  with  long,  sloping  roof  which  was  near  the  present 
Sheffield  house.  The  old  house  was  the  home  of  Nathan  Beers  himself,  who 
was  one  of  the  charadteristic  men  of  the  revolutionary  period.  A  son  of  the 
Nathan  Beers  who  was  killed  in  his  own  house  by  the  "redcoats"  in  their 
attack  on  New  Haven,  he  had  himself  gone  with  Arnold  at  the  outbreak  of 
fighting,  and  later  was  one  of  the  guards  of  the  unfortunate  Andre  during  the 
last  night  of  his  blighted  life.  What  were  the  thoughts  of  the  young  men 
during  those  solemn  hours,  we  know  not. 

Beers  described 
Andre  as  outwardly 
calm,  except  for  the 
nervous  rolling  of  a 
pebble  under  his  foot. 
Before  his  execution 
he  gave  his  gentle- 
faced  keeper  a  pen 
and  ink  portrait  of 
himself,  which  he 
had  made  by  the  aid 
of  a  mirror  the  day 
before.  That  sad  lit- 
tle bit  of  paper  is  now 
in  the  Yale  College 
library.  Mr.  Beers 
was  a  lieutenant  and 
paymaster  in  the 
army,  and  so  saw 
much  of  Washington. 
One  still  living  re- 
members that  he  often 
spoke  of  seeing  the 
harassed  commander 
withdraw  into  the 
forest,  before  a  battle, 
to  invoke  the  Lord 
of  Hosts.  After  the 
war,  Mr.  Beers,  who 

had  abundant  means  for  those  days,  was  persuaded  by  the  first  President  Dwight 
to  purvey  for  the  college  commons.  Alas  !  there  was  a  lamentable  discrepancy 
between  the  appetites  of  college  boys  and  their  ability  or  willingness  to  pay — 
debts  rapidly  accumulated  and  Mr.  Beers  was  left  a  poor  man,  unable  to  meet 
his  obligations.  After  so  many  j^ears  had  pa,ssed  that  the  claims  against  him 
were  several  times  outlawed,  he  succeeded  in  getting  a  pension  ;  but,  instead  of 


THE  BEERS  ELM. 


6o 


Hi/ I  house  Avenice. 


applying  it  to  personal  needs,  he  spent  it  all  in  paying  his  creditors  or  their 
descendants,  whom  he  sought  out  with  great  pains.  Such  a  man  deserved  the 
love  and  respedl  which  attended  him  even  to  the  extreme  age  of  ninety-six. 
Well  for  the  old  North  Church  that  it  kept  him  as  its  deacon  for  many  years  ! 
He  became  extremely  deaf  in  old  age  ;  and  on  one  of  the  occasions  when  the 

Governor's  Guard  marched  to  his  home  to 
salute  him,  he  acknowledged  the  compliment 
by  :  "  Boys,  I  can't  hear  your  guns,  but  your 
powder  smells  good  !"  He  was  noted  for 
that  unfailing  courtesy  and  gracious  dignity 
which  his  admirers  called  Washingtonian. 
Why  are  we  not  ashamed  to  speak  of  good 
manners  as  "old  fashioned?"  With  all  the 
present  revival  of  the  past,  let  us  bring  into 
vogue  the  "old  school"  of  high  breeding 
and  true  culture. 

The  portrait  by  Jocelyn,  of  which  a  copy 
is  given,  was  painted  in  the  old  age  of  Mr. 
Beers  and  belonged  to  his  grandson,  Dr.  Levi 
Ives,  being  now  in  the  possession  of  the 
latter's  son,  Dr.  Robert  Ives. 

The  imposing  front  of  St.  Mary's  Roman 
Catholic  church,  and,  opposite  it,  the  Shef- 
field house,  recall  us  to  modern  times.  That 
house  was  built  by  the  distinguished  architedt,  Ithiel  Town,  for  his  own  use. 
Then,  after  Dr.  Peters  had  lived  in  it,  Mr.  Sheffield  bought  it  and  added  the 
extremities  of  the  wings, 
which  were  not  in  the  orig- 
inal plan.  Many  can  re- 
member the  handsome  old 
man  in  the  window,  peace- 
fully enjoying  the  evening 
of  life.  He  completed  his 
noble  gifts  to  Yale  by  be- 
queathing to  her  his  house 
and  grounds,  and  so  a  biolog- 
ical laboratory  adds  the  asso- 
ciations of  science  to  those  of 
patriotism,  art,  and  philan- 
thropy, already  connected 
with  the  place. 

A  little  north  of  the 
spot  where  North  Sheffield 
Hall  is,  but  facing  the  ave- 
nue, was  the  old  Mansfield  house,  that,  to  the  day  of  its  downfall,  bore  the  bullet 


NATHAN   BKERS. 


THE  CLOISTER. 


Hillhouse  Avenue. 


6i 


marks  left  by  the  British  ;  four  maps,  now  in  the  New  Haven  Historical  Society, 
were  in  the  house  then  and  were  pierced  by  the  shots.  The  story  goes  that 
Mrs.  Mansfield,  whose  husband  was  a  Tor\',  while  her  sons  were  patriots,  had 
just  bowed  to  hear  her  little  one  say  his  prayers,  when  a  bullet  passed  immedi- 
ately over  her  head.  The  old  building  standing  where  Sheffield  Hall  now  is 
was  occupied  as  a  guard-hou.se  by  the  British,  whose  appreciation  of  Mr.  Man.s- 
field's  tory  principles  did  not  prevent  them  from  stealing  from  his  house  a  silver 
tankard  which  was  secreted  in  one  of  the  beds. 

The  famous  Farmington  Canal  passed  diagonally  across  the  avenue,  and  the 
cut  was  u.sed  by  the  Canal  railroad,  when  it  was  built.  Children  used  to  linger 
on  the  bridge  to  look  at  the  boats  as  now  they  do  to  see  the  trains.  The  railroad 
station  was,  for  a  year  or  two,  near  Temple  street,  at  the  rear  of  the  place  of  Mr. 
William  Hillhouse.  Senator  Hillhouse  was  interested  in  the  opening  of  the 
canal,  which,  in  the  world's 
ignorance  of  the  railroads 
that  were  soon  to  be,  prom- 
ised well.  He  gave  eclat  to 
the  enterprise  by  breaking 
the  earth,  and  the  .spade 
which  he  used,  now  adorned 
with  his  portrait,  is  in  the 
rooms  of  the  New  Haven 
Historical  Society. 

Many  eyes  have  turned 
to  the  house  behind  the  rho- 
dodendrons, on  the  corner  of 
Trumbull  street  and  the  ave- 
nue, because  for  nearly  forty 
years,  it  was  the  home  of  the 
famous  geologist  and  miner- 
alogist, Professor  Dana.  His 
books  and  his  teachings  have 
made  him  a  light  in  the  path 
of  science ;    his   enthusiasm 

and  success  in  his  chosen  pursuits,  combined  with  his  spotless  character,  made 
his  presence  a  power,  and  his  going  has  left  a  sad  vacancy. 

The  home  of  the  elder  Professor  Silliman,  a  man  of  high  position  in  the 
scientific  and  the  social  world,  was  once  on  the  corner  of  that  street  and  the 
avenue.  It  was  built  by  the  Hillhouses,  and  was  for  a  long  time  a  solitary 
house.  Professor  Silliman  bought  it  in  1809,  and  he  was  regarded  as  living  far 
out  of  town.     To  it  he  brought  his  bride  and  in  it  he  died  in  1864. 

The  house  had  several  additions,  which  were  taken  away  or  changed  when 
it  was  moved  to  Trumbull  street.  A  low,  arched  opening  could  be  seen  at  one 
side  in  the  thick  stone  wall  of  one  of  those  wings.  Although  only  a  prosaic 
means  of  access  to  the  kitchen,  the  students  of  the  day  persisted  in  conne<fling  it 


RESIDKNCK   OF   WII.I.I.^M    HII^I.HOUSK. 


62 


Hillhouse  Avenue. 


with  the  novel  and  profound  scientific  investigations  of  the  famous  and  learned 
professor,  and  looked  on  it  as  a  mj'sterious  entrance  to  occult  and  questionable 
rites  which  were  not  divulged  to  the  outside  world. 

Had  he  lived  five  hundred  years  earlier,  Silliman  might  have  shared  the 
fate  of  Roger  Bacon.  This  arch,  as  well  as  a  canal  boat  and  a  canal  bridge, 
belonging  to  the  Farmington  canal,  can  be  seen  in  the  accompanying  cut,  taken 
from  an  original  drawing  by  Mr.  Robert  Bakewell,  a  New  Haven  artist  of  note 
in  his  generation.  The  drawing  is  in  the  possession  of  Professor  Silliman's 
daughter,  Mrs.  James  D.  Dana,  who,  with  her  sister,  is  represented  in  the  fore- 
ground. 

Once,  to  light  the  carriages  bearing  guests  to  the  wedding  of  one  of  his 
daughters,  he  hung  a  lantern  on  a  tree  at  the  entrance  of  the  avenue.  The 
staple  remained,  was  forgotten,  and  years  after,  when  the  tree  was  cut  down, 


HOUSE  OF  PROFESSOR   SIIJ4MAN,   THE  ELDER,    ABOUT    1836. 

was  found  imbedded  within  the  trunk.     It  was  the  cause  of  great  bewilderment, 
until  Professor  Silliman  explained  the  mystery. 

His  first  wife  was  the  daughter  of  the  second  Gov.  Jonathan  Trumbull. 
Madam  Trumbull  passed  the  last  nine  years  of  her  life  in  the  house  of  her 
son-in-law,  and  for  her,  Trumbull  street,  at  first  called  New  street,  was  named. 
Here  it  was  that  I,afayette,  in  his  triumphal  last  visit  to  us,  in  1823,  paid  his 
respe<5ls  to  her  as  a  survivor  of  the  friends  of  his  brilliant  youth.  We  can  fancy 
the  procession  arriving  with  all  civic  and   military  parade,  and  onlookers  and 


Hill  house  Avenue. 


63 


escort  waiting  with  eager  reverence,  while  the  veteran  and  the  dame  looked  back 
across  the  vale  of  years  to  the  heights  of  revolutionary  trials  and  triumphs  ;  and 
then  the  departure  through  the  leafy  street,  all  knowing  that  it  was  the  last  time. 

Mrs.  James  D.  Dana  was  then  a  baby,  and  had  the  honor  of  being  kissed 
on  the  occasion  by  the  gallant  old  Frenchman.  Col.  John  Trumbull,  the 
painter,  Mrs.  Silliman's  uncle,  was  for  some  years  an  inmate  of  the  house.  To 
it  came  Agassiz,  with  his  wife,  for  their  first  visit  in  this  country,  when  he  was 
in  the  glow  of  his  beauty  and  enthusiasm  ;  and  throughout  his  life,  at  this 
house  and  that  of  Professor  Dana,  he  was  a  frequent  visitor. 

Professor  Silliman's  high  position  in  the  scientific  and  the  social  world 
brought  to  him  during  his  long  life  on  the  avenue  many  other  illustrious  ones, 
Sir  Charles  and  Lady  Lyell ;  Basil  Hall,  the  English  traveler  ;  Dr.  Hare,  of 
Philadelphia  ;  President  John  Quincy  Adams,  among  them. 

In  fadt,  it  would  be  safe 
to  say  that  few  men  of  literary, 
scientific,  or  artistic  distindlion 
have  visited  New  E)ngland 
without  being  domiciled  some- 
where on  the  avenue.  Under 
Professor  Dana's  roof  have 
come  such  men  as  Wendell 
Phillips,  Professor  Guyot,  Pro- 
fessor Gray,  of  Cambridge  ; 
Professor  Baird,  of  the  Smith- 
sonian Institute. 

Freeman,  Farrar,  and 
Dean  Stanley,  church  digni- 
taries and  historians  galore, 
Ian  Maclaren  last  but  not  least, 
have  been  entertained  \)y  Pro- 
fessor Fisher,  the  church  his- 
torian, who  has  compressed 
the  learning  of  a  lifetime  into 
the  "History  of  the  Reforma- 
tion," the  "History  of  Chris- 
tian Do<5trine, "  the  "  Outlines 
of  Universal  History,"  etc., 
works  whose  erudition  and 
candor  have  made  him  known 
on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 

The  first  eredted  of  the  houses  now  standing  on  the  avenue  was  built  by 
Mr.  William  J.  Forbes  for  his  daughter,  the  wife  of  the  second  Professor  Ben- 
jamin Silliman.  It  was  one  of  the  first  houses  in  the  city  in  which  were 
employed  certain  features  of  interior  decoration  now  often  seen.  It  was  for 
years  a  center  of  gracious  culture  and  hospitality.     Famous  people  were  often 


ST.    M.VRV'S    CHURCH. 


64 


Hillhouse  Avenue. 


THE    DANA    HOi:.SK. 


there ;  recently,  Dr.  Dorpfeld,  the  coadjutor  of  Schliemann  in  digging  out  from 
the  earth  the  secrets  of  Greek  history,  has  been  the  guest  of  Professor  Seymour, 
the  learned  Greek  scholar,  the  present  occupant  of  the  house. 

Next  in  time  to  the  elder  Professor  Silliman's  house  was  that' of  Mrs. 
Whelpley,  which  at  first  stood  on  another  street.  She  was  the  sister  of  Mrs. 
Apthorpe,  and  the  mother  of  Melancthon  Whelpley,  one  of  the  wretched  victims 

of  the  Nicarauguan 
expedition.  It  was 
afterwards  the  home 
of  President  Porter, 
who  received  there  a 
long  procession  of 
men  of  note  in  all 
departments  of  learn- 
ing. As  we  go  on  to 
the  house  of  Profes- 
sor Hoppin,  whose 
"Old  England"  has 
been  a  guide  to  manj' 
a  wanderer  in  the 
mother  island,  even 
as  his  le<5tures  in  the 
Yale  Art  School  have 
led  the  way  to  clearer 
insight  in  the  paths  of  art,  we  remember  that  Phillips  Brooks ;  the  Bishop  of 
Manchester,  England ;  Lady  E.  Fitzmaurice,  the  author,  and  the  friend  of 
Browning ;  Herkomer,  the  painter  ;  Augustus  Hoppin,  the  artist ;  Amelia  B. 
Edwards,  learned  "in  the  wis- 
dom of  the  Egyptians,"  have 
enjoyed  hospitality  there. 

Midway  on  the  street  is  the 
home  of  Mrs.  Boardman,  the 
giver  of  the  Manual  Training 
School.  The  house  is  also  a.sso- 
ciated  with  Mayor  Aaron  Skin- 
ner, who  was,  during  his  life, 
a  steadfast  promoter  of  New 
Haven's  welfare,  a  citizen  who 
left  many  traces  of  his  good 
taste,  notably  in  the  gateway 
and  walls  of  the  Grove  Street 
Cemetery.  He  built  the  house 
for   a   boys'  school,    which    for 

years  existed  there  beside  the  girls'  school,  conducted  by  the  Misses  Apthorpe, 
in  the  house  now  in  the  possession  of  Yale  University,  and  occupied  by  Mrs. 
Cady's  .school. 


H(H"SE    WHKRK    I,IVl';i 


I'm:  i:i,iii:r   pro 


SI1.I,I-MAX. 


Hillhouse  Avenue. 


65 


THE  RESIDENCE  OF  PROF.   THOMAS  D.   SEYMOUR. 
{Formerly  the  home  0/  Pro/.    Benjamin  Siiiiman,  the  younger.) 


On  the  other  side  lived  Henry  Farnam,  the  giver  of  Farnam  College,  and 
of  that  triumph  of  road-making,  the  ever  beautiful  Farnam  Drive  in  East  Rock 
Park.  The  house  and 
grounds  are  to  be  the  prop- 
erty of  Yale  at  some  time  ; 
the  new  operating  theater  at 
the  Nevp  Haven  hospital  is 
the  gift  of  his  widow  and  his 
son,  Professor  Farnam  ;  and 
in  many  ways  the  family 
name  is  associated  with  ben- 
efactions to  the  city. 

Around  all  lingers  the 
memory  of  that  remarkable 
man  who  made  his  own 
monument  in  this  beautiful 
street.  We  hope  that  he  was 
gifted  with  a  prophetic  vis- 
ion of  his  completed  plan  ; 
and,  indeed,  some  now  liv- 
ing remember  his  tall  form 
striding  up  and  down  the 
avenue  for  many  years  after  it  was  opened. 

The  Hillhouses  were  a  Protestant  family  of  importance  in  Ireland,  having 

an    estate    at    Arti- 
R    ^^^flHHJ^"  *  '"'r^^'^^  Mf'^^^iulf^       kelly,      near     Lon- 

donderry, whence  a 
Rev.  James  Hill- 
house,  born  in  1687, 
came  to  New  Hamp- 
shire about  1719, 
and  thence  to  Mont- 
ville,  near  New  Lon- 
don. There  two 
sons,  William  and 
James  Abraham, 
were  born.  His 
wife,  Mary  Fitch, 
was  a  great  grand- 
daughter of  Captain 
John  Mason,  of  Pe- 
quotfame;  and  thus, 
although  the  Hill- 
house  family  came 
to  America  nearly  one  hundred  years  after  the  landing  at  Plymouth,  these  sons 


WHKRK  PRHSIDKNT   I'ORTER   I.IVKD. 


Hillhouse  Avenue. 


67 


were  descended  from  one  of  the  most  valuable  of  the  early  settlers.  William 
married  a  sister  of  the  first  Governor  Griswold,  and  of  their  numerous  sons,  the 
second,  James,  was  adopted  by  his  uncle,  James  Abraham,  who  had  been  grad- 
uated from  Yale  in  1 749,  and  had  become  a  lawyer  in  New  Haven,  distinguished 
for  ability  and  uprightness.  The  little  seven-year-old  boy  was  undoubtedly 
warmly  welcomed  in  the  big,  childless  Hillhouse  house  on  Grove  street,  but 
probably  no  one  dreamed  that  his  name  was  to  be  inseparably  associated  with 
benefits  to  New  Haven. 

The  father,  William,  of  Montville,  was  himself  a  striking  charadler,  and 
filled  an  important  place  in  public  life  even  to  his  eightieth  year,  serving  in  one 
hundred  and  six  semi-annual  legislatures.  For  these  frequent  trips  to  Hartford 
and  New  Haven,  he 
scorned  such  new- 
fashioned  luxuries  as 
wheeled  carriages,  re- 
garding such  tokens 
of  eflfeminate  degen- 
eracy much  as  did 
the  Gauls  the  saddles 
of  their  neighbors  ; 
and  he  invariablj' 
performed  the  jour- 
ney in  one  day,  and 
on  horseback.  His 
grandson,  James  A. 
Hillhouse,  the  poet, 
has  left,  in  his  notes 
to  ' 'Sachem's Wood, ' ' 
the  following  pictur- 
esque description  of 
his  grandfather : 

"  Venerable    im- 
age of  the  elder  day  ! 

Well  do  I  remember  those  stupendous  .shoe-buckles  :  that  long  gold-headed  cane 
(kept  in  madam's,  thy  sister's  best  closet,  for  thy  sole  annual  use)  ;  that  steel 
watch  chain  and  silver  pendants,  yea,  and  the  streak  of  holland  like  the  slash  in 
an  antique  doublet,  commonly  seen  between  thy  waistcoat  and  small  clothes,  as 
thou  pas.sedst  daily  at  nine  o'clock,  a.  Ji.,  during  the  autumnal  session." 

And  again:  "  As  the  oldest  councilor,  at  the  Governor's  right  hand,  sat 
ever  the  patriarch  of  Monticello  (a  study  for  Spagnoletto),  with  half  his  body,  in 
addition  to  his  legs,  under  the  table,  a  huge  pair  of  depending  eyebrows  con- 
cealing all  the  eyes  he  had  till  called  upon  for  an  opinion,  when  he  lifted 
them  up  long  enough  to  speak  briefly  and  then  they  immediately  relapsed.  At 
his  leave-taking  (when  eighty  years  old)  there  was  not  a  dry  eye  at  the  council 
board." 


THE    BOARDMAN    RESIDENCE. 


68 


Hillhouse  Avenue. 


In  a  New  Haven  newspaper  of  December  21,  1791,  we  find  the  following 
announcement  of  holiday  cheer  and  charity  : 

"  A  X(MV)mas  ox  will  be  distributed  on  Saturday  next,  and  the  needy  are 
requested  to  apply.  William  Hillhouse." 

Quite  a  contrast  to  the  organized  charities  and  the  tramps  of  to-day  !  One 
likes  to  pi(5lure  the  jovial  scene  when  the  needy  ones  so  politely  invited  crowded 
around  to  receive  the  bountj^  of  the  generous  man.  Probablj'  there  were 
grumblers  even  then. 

William  Hillhouse,  of  Montville,  lived  to  see  his  son  a  success.  He  died  in 
1816.  That  son,  coming  from  the  large  family  in  Montville,  found  himself  in 
the  position  of  only  child  in  his  uncle's  family  in  New  Haven.  He  was  a  student 
in  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School,  and  afterward  at  Yale,  in  the  class  of  1773. 

The  serious  discussions  of  the 
time  did  not  wholly  repress 
youthful  festivity,  for,  at  the 
anniversary  of  the  lyinonian 
Society,  in  1772,  the  "  Beaux's 
Stratagem"  was  given,  and 
Nathan  Hale  and  James  Hill- 
house were  among  the  adtors. 

The  faculty  did  not  cover 
so  many  pages  then  as  now, 
five  names  composing  the  list : 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Daggett  (adling 
President),  who,  later,  distin- 
guished himself  by  marching 
in  solitary  defiance  against  the 
British  invaders  of  New  Haven; 
Nehemiah  Strong,  Professor 
of  Mathematics  and  Natural 
Philosophy,  and  three  tutors.  But  one  of  these  tutors  was  afterwards  the  first 
President  Dwight,  and  he  interested  himself  in  young  Hillhouse  enough  to  rouse 
him  to  do  his  best,  and  thus  he  gave  the  impulse  which  seems  to  have  diredled 
a  noble  career. 

One  very  important  influence  must  have  come  from  the  aunt,  under  whose 
roof  he  lived.  She  was  Miss  Mary  Lucas  before  marriage,  a  stately  woman  of 
French  descent,  and  she  brought  much  land  in  the  region  of  Temple  street  into 
the  family.  Her  husband,  James  Abraham  Hillhouse,  died  in  1775,  in  mid- 
career,  but  she  lived  to  old  age  in  the  family  mansion,  which  is  now  called 
Grove  Hall.  As  long  as  she  lived  the  family  meeting  for  Christmas  dinner  was 
at  her  house  ;  and  as  long  as  she  lived  her  adopted  son  never  failed,  when  in 
New  Haven,  to  pay  her  a  daily  visit  of  respedt.  Before  his  death,  the  uncle  had 
forbidden  his  nephew  to  leave  his  law  studies  to  follow  Arnold  at  the  outbreak 
of  hostilities,  but  when  the  invasion  of  the  town  roused  all  patriots  to  excite- 
ment, young  Hillhouse,  who  had  already  issued  a  stirring  call  for  enlistments, 


THE   HENRY    FARXA.M    Kl-Sl  DliXClC. 


Hillhouse  Avetiur. 


69 


led  out,  as  Captain  of  the  Governor's  Foot  Guards,  the  little  company  of 
defenders.  Aaron  Burr,  then  in  his  brilliant  j-outh,  was  visiting  his  New  Haven 
friends  and  volunteered  to  lead  one  company. 

What  a  hurrying  and  skurrying  there  must  have  been  on  that  fifth  of  July, 
which  was  to  have  seen  the  first  celebration  of  the  "  glorious  Fourth  !"  What 
a  change  from  the  cheerful  discussions  of  jubilant  festivity  to  the  hasty  prepar- 
ations for  defense  !  Captain  Hillhouse  was  full  of  acflivity.  He  led  his  men 
across  the  fields  to  W^estville  bridge,  he  fought,  he  captured  prisoners,  and  in 
one  way  and  another  achieved  the  desired  objedl  of  delaying  the  enemy  for  many 
hours,  so  that  those  who  tarried  behind  had  an  opportunity  to  remove  much 
valuable  property. 
When  the  pillaging 
of  the  town  could  be 
no  longer  averted, 
the  Hillhouse  home 
was  rescued  from 
plunder  and  destruc- 
tion by  the  respedt 
felt  for  Madam  Hill- 
house, who  was  well 
known  as  an  adher- 
ant  of  the  king  and 
the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. 

She  entertained 
the  British  officers 
with  all  the  hospi- 
tality at  her  com- 
mand, very  likely  in- 
wardly hoping  thus 
to  mitigate  the  se- 
verity of  the  treat- 
ment of  her  friends.  What  must  have  been  her  consternation  in  the  midst  of 
courtesies  exchanged,  to  behold  a  newspaper,  unwittingly  left  in  sight,  drawn 
forth,  and  the  highly  treasonable  condudt  of  her  nephew  made  evident  by  his 
printed  call  for  volunteers.  All  seemed  lost ;  but  the  dignified  old  lady  took 
truth  for  her  defender,  and  did  not  deny  that  her  young  relative,  in  her  esti- 
mation misguided,  was  doing  his  best  to  defeat  his  majesty's  forces;  but  she 
explained  that  the  house,  like  her  opinions,  was  her  own,  and  thus  wrath  was 
appeased  and  the  house  was  saved. 

Hostilities  over.  Captain  Hillhouse,  who  was  already  an  able  lawyer,  noted 
for  never  undertaking  a  case  unless  he  had  implicit  confidence  in  its  justice,  was 
introduced  to  political  life  in  the  State  L,egislature,  in  1780. 

Although  very  young  for  the  honor,  he  was  sent  to  the  Council  in  1789, 
and,  in  1790,  to  Congress.     For  fourteen  years  he  served  the  country  as  senator, 


THE   CHARLES    H.    K.\RNAM    RESIDENCE. 


70 


Hill  house  Avenue. 


gallantly  representing  the  land  of  steady  habits.  He  was  a  Federalist,  and 
accordingly  a  fervent  admirer  of  Washington,  but  he  learned  to  dread  the  effeifl 
of  presidential  elediions.  It  is  reported  that  he  sometimes  said  to  his  friends 
that  "  the  presidency  was  made  for  Washington  ;  that  the  convention  in  defining 
the  powers  of  that  office,  and  the  states  in  accepting  the  constitution  as  it  was, 
had  Washington  only  in  their  thoughts,  and  that  the  powers  of  that  office  were 
too  great  to  be  committed  to  any  other  man."  So,  in  April,  1808,  he  proposed 
to  the  Senate  a  plan  for  reducing  the  term  of  office  ;  for  representatives,  to  one 
year  ;  for  senators,  to  three ;  for  president,  to  one  year.  The  president  was  to 
be  seledled  by  lot  from  the  Senate. 

He  said,  "  The  office  of  President  is  the  only  one  in  our  government  clothed 
with  such  powers  as  might  endanger  liberty,  and  I  am  not  without  apprehension 
that,   at  some  future  period,    they  may  be  exerted  to  overthrow  the  liberties  of 

our  countr3^"  He 
thus  describes  an 
eledlion  going  on 
at  that  time :  "In 
whatever  dire<5tion 
we  turn  our  eyes, 
we  behold  the  peo- 
ple arranging  them- 
selves for  the  pur- 
pose of  commencing 
the  eledlioneering 
campaign  for  the 
next  President  and 
Vice-President.  All 
the  passions  and 
feelings  of  the  hu- 
man heart  are 
brought  into  the 
most  adlive  operation.  The  eleAioneering  spirit  finds  its  way  to  every  fireside, 
pervades  our  domestic  circles,  and  threatens  to  destroy  the  enjoyment  of  social 
harmony.  The  candidates  may  have  no  agency  in  the  business.  They  may  be 
the  involuntary  objeds  of  such  competition,  without  the  power  of  diredling  or 
controlling  the  storm.  The  fault  is  in  the  mode  of  election,  in  setting  the  people 
to  choose  a  king.  The  evil  is  increasing,  and  will  increase,  until  it  shall  termi- 
nate in  civil  war  and  despotism."  This  naturally  excited  much  comment.  But 
Mr.  Hillhouse  expressed  opinions  entertained  by  other  thinking  men.  Chan- 
cellor Kent  wrote  to  him  ;  "  We  can  not  but  perceive  that  this  very  presidential 
question  has  already  disturbed  and  corrupted  the  administration  of  government. 
Your  refledtions  are  sage,  patriotic,  and  denote  a  deep  and  just  knowledge  of 
government  and  of  men."  Chief  Justice  Marshall  wrote,  in  1831  :  "The 
passions  of  men  are  inflamed  to  so  fearful  an  extent,  large  masses  are  so  embit- 
tered against  each  other,  that  I  dread  the  consequences.     The  eledlion  agitates 


RESIDKNCK    OF    PROKK.SSOR    FISHER. 


milhoicse  Avenue. 


71 


every  sedlion  of  the  United  States,  and  the  ferment  is  never  to  subside.     Scarcely 
is  a  President  eledled  before  the  machinations  respecfting  a  successor  commence." 

Crawford,  afterward  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  under  Monroe,  seconded  the 
motion.  Crawford  wrote  :  "  Eledtive  chief  magistrates  are  not,  and  can  not,  in 
the  nature  of  things,  be  the  best  men  in  the  nation  ;  while  such  eledtions  never 
fail  to  produce  mischief  to  the  nation." 

We  have  outlived  the  dread  of  a  king  ;  but,  just  after  the  stress  of  one  of 
the  most  intense  of  presidential  campaigns,  what  strange  significance  is  attached 
to  these  forebodings  of  the  serious  men  of  almost  a  century  ago  ! 

It  is  very  evident  that  Mr.  Hillhouse  was  the  proper  type  of  man  for  political 
life,  for  his  zeal  and  ability  were  expended  in  efforts  truly  disinterested.  He 
seemed  to  have  no  thought  of  self-aggrandizement,  either  financial  or  political. 
The      success      with 

which    he     managed  -        ^--    ^^ 

his  own  affairs  gave 
men  confidence  that 
he  could  carry  on  the 
business  of  the  pub- 
lic, and  never  did  he 
disappoint  or  betray 
that  confidence.  His 
unceasing  exertions 
for  his  town  and  .state 
were  the  result  of  an 
affecftion  that  knew 
no  weariness.  Per- 
haps in  no  way  did 
he  accomplish  a  more 
lasting  benefit  for  the 
state  than  when  he 
restored  the  school 
fund  to  a  paying  con- 
dition. In  1786,  Conne(5licut  reserved  to  itself  from  its  original  grant,  which 
extended  to  the  Pacific,  a  tradt  in  northern  Ohio  between  the  same  parallels  that 
formed  its  own  boundaries.  Some  of  this  land  was  given  to  those  who  had 
suffered  at  the  time  of  the  British  invasion  ;  the  remainder,  three  million  three 
hundred  thousand  acres,  was  sold  to  a  company  of  capitalists,  and  was  applied 
to  the  support  of  the  public  schools.  As  is  well  known,  this  is  the  first  school 
fund. 

But  interest  was  not  paid,  affairs  fell  into  disorder,  and,  in  1809,  the  whole 
fund  seemed  in  jeopardy.  Then  it  was  that  the  public  eye  was  turned  on  James 
Hillhouse  as  the  only  man  who  could  relieve  the  state  from  its  difficulties  ;  and, 
in  place  of  a  Board  of  Managers,  he  was  appointed  sole  Commissioner.  Then  it 
was  that  he  gave  up  his  seat  in  the  Senate  and  devoted  fifteen  years  of  perplexity 
and  toil  to  straightening  the  knotty  problem  given  him.     By  processes  of  busi- 


The  hoTchki.ss  ki'.siui:.nck. 


72 


Hillhoiise  Avenue. 


ness,  the  original  thirty-six  bonds  had  become  nearly  five  hundred.  The 
debtors  were  scattered,  and  they  were  secured  many  times  by  mortgages  on  lands 
in  different  states,  then  not  easily  accessible.  "  Without  a  single  litigated  suit  or 
a  dollar  paid  for  counsel,  he  restored  the  fund  to  safety  and  order."  He  used  all 
his  ingenuity  in  dealing  with  individuals,  and  in  seeking  that  which  was  appar- 
ently lost,  so  that  he  not  only  secured  the  original  sum,  but  added  a  half  million 
to  it,  leaving  it  one  million,  seven  hundred  thousand  dollars  at  his  retirement. 

Such  results  were  not  attained  without  indescribable  exertion.  In  sun  and 
storm,  through  the  wilds  of  a  new  country,  wading  deep  fords,  threading  mazy 
forests,  in  spite  of  fever's  heat  and  winter's  cold,  even  when  in  danger  of 
imprisonment  under  the  false  accusation  of  an  enemy,  he  persevered  to  the 
desired  end.  For  seven  or  eight  years  his  journeys  were  performed  in  a  light 
sulky,   drawn   by  his  famous    "Young  Jin,"    as  indomitable  as   her   master. 

Sometimes  he  drove 
her  seventy  miles  in 
a  day.  Once,  after 
twilight,  in  a  lonely 
region,  he  drove  her 
at  full  speed  for  thirty 
miles,  because  he  was 
dogged  by  two  ruf- 
fians who  tried  to 
stop  him  and  snatch 
his  trunk.  They 
would  have  been  still 
more  enraged  at  being 
foiled  than  they  were, 
if  they  had  known 
that  twenty  thousand 
dollars  were  locked 
in  that  trunk.  Poor 
Young  Jin  was  blind  after  that  forced  march. 

Again  in  the  silent  forest,  an  Indian,  as  silent,  appeared  at  his  side  and  kept 
himself  abreast  for  miles.  At  last,  Mr.  Hillhouse  stopped,  gave  him  a  coin,  and 
the  man  of  the  woods  vanished  as  he  had  come. 

Mr.  Hillhouse  himself  by  exposure  to  cold,  lost  the  use  of  one  eye  for  a 
whole  winter,  but  the  well  eye  was  made  to  do  double  work.  Instead  of  making 
enemies  by  his  demand  for  lost  property,  he  often  gained  friends,  and  some 
debtors  were  restored  from  poverty  to  wealth  by  his  sympathetic  management  of 
their  affairs,  making  his  interference  a  mutual  benefit. 

In  the  case  of  the  estate  of  Oliver  Phelps,  the  indebtedness  had  amounted 
to  three  hundred  and  fifty-six  thousand  dollars.  Mr.  Hillhouse  went  to  the 
very  spot  where  lay  the  land  involved,  and  so  extricated  it  from  embarrassment 
that  he  gained  the  whole  sum  for  the  fund  and  left  the  family  rich.  Fittingly, 
they  presented  him  with  six  thousand   dollars  as  a  token  of  appreciation  ;  but 


MRS.    CADY'S   SCHOOI^. 


Hillhouse  Avenue. 


73 


he  declined  to  accept  it  for  himself  and  gave  it  with  about  four  thousand  dollars 
more  sent  to  him  for  similar  reasons,  by  others,  to  the  fund.  Surely  every  boy 
and  girl  in  Connedlicut  who  enjoys  the  advantages  of  public  schools  ought  to 
be  taught  to  revere  the  man  whose  disinterested  and  skillful  labors  secured  these 
benefits,  and  should  learn  to  regard  the  qualities  which  the  first  commissioner 
displayed,  as  the  copy  above  all  others  to  be  imitated  in  forming  that  true  and 
upright  charadler  which  is  the  most  precious  treasure  the  citizen  can  bring  to 
the  state. 

In  still  one  more  office,  that  of  treasurer  of  Yale,  held  for  fifty  years,  from 
1782  to  1832,  he  achieved  a  benefit  lasting  and  widespread  in  its  influence. 

In  1 79 1,  the  college  was  under  an  exclusively  clerical  corporation,  which 
caused  some  dissatisfaction  ;  and  there  were  forcible  suggestions  of  another  in- 
stitution to  be  under  state  control.  At  this  crisis,  Mr.  Hillhouse  proposed  that 
the  Governor  and 
Lieutenant  Gover- 
nor and  six  ' '  senior 
assistants  "  (after- 
wards six  senators) 
should  be  added  to 
the  corporation,  and 
he  conceived  the 
idea  that  the  money 
raised  throughout 
the  state  for  paying 
state  revolutionary 
debts,  debts  which 
had  just  been  as- 
sumed by  the  United 
States  government, 
should  be  in  part 
given  to  Yale.  Thus 
about  forty  thou- 
sand dollars  were  added  to  the  slender  college  purse,  and  with  that,  under  the 
direction  of  Mr.  Hillhouse  and  of  John  Trumbull,  the  artist,  needed  buildings 
were  ere<5ted  from  time  to  time. 

Just  after  meeting  the  prudential  committee  of  the  college  to  present  his 
report,  this  noble  man  excused  himself  from  the  family  circle  at  Sachem's  Wood, 
retired  to  his  own  room,  and  gently  closed  his  eyes  on  the  adtivities  of  this  world, 
December  29,  1832. 

Hopeful  amid  difficulties,  untiring  in  labors,  unmoved  by  temptations  of 
public  life,  brave  and  patient  in  peril,  full  of  all  good  and  lovely  impulses,  and 
endowed  with  sagacity  and  ability  to  carry  out  his  design,  James  Hillhouse 
was  a  man  whose  like  does  not  appear  in  every  generation. 

We  are  too  apt  to  feel  that  the  virtues  of  our  forefathers  belonged  to  a  past 
age  ;  that  they  are  superseded  in  common  with  the  stage  coach  and  the  flint  lock, 


CROVK    AT   SACHICM'S   wood. 


74  Hillhouse  Avenue. 

and  that  any  attempt  to  reinstate  them  in  their  former  prominent  place  in  the 
public  estimation  would  be  like  the  efforts  to  call  back  the  candle  light  and  the 
spinning  wheel  of  other  days— charming,  but  not  pradtical.  But  while,  in  the 
kaleidoscope  of  life,  circumstances  and  conditions  never  repeat  their  grouping, 
there  is  always  a  place  for  the  main  pieces  of  integrity,  single-heartedness,  and 
patriotism  ;  and  uprightness  and  unselfishness  ought  to  be  admired  and  culti- 
vated as  much  in  the  end  of  the  century  as  in  the  beginning. 

Mr.  Hillhouse's  first  wife  died  young.  His  second  wife  was  Rebecca  Wool- 
sey,  of  Dosoris,  L.  I.  Of  his  children,  one,  Augustus,  passed  many  years  in 
France,  where  he  died ;  another  son,  James  Abraham,  the  poet,  developed  liter- 
ary talent  and  devoted  himself  to  writing.  He  delivered  some  fine  addresses 
and  poems  on  special  occasions.  Among  his  works,  "Sachem's  Wood,"  a 
beautiful  description  of  his  home  ;  "  The  Judgment ;"  and  "Percy's  Masque," 
are  best  known.  The  latter,  with  Hotspur's  son,  the  last  of  the  Percies,  as  hero, 
pictures  the  time  of  Henry  V.,  and  was  admired  on  both  sides  of  the  water. 
The  third  child,  Mary  Lucas  Hillhouse,  lived  to  old  age,  in  the  house  upon  the 
hill,  and  displayed,  from  three  years  up,  her  father's  sagacity  and  interest  in 
public  affairs.  She  was  strenuous  in  insisting  that  sewing  ought  to  be  taught  in 
the  public  schools  ;  and,  to  her,  the  colored  people  of  New  Haven  owe  their 
school  on  Goffe  street.  Always  a  promoter  of  good  works,  she  was  so  constant  a 
reader  and  student,  that  her  society  was  sought  by  the  learned,  and,  as  an 
acknowledgment  of  favors  received  from  her  father  and  herself,  a  professorship 
was  honored  by  the  family  name. 

She  loved  to  talk  of  the  past,  and  to  few  has  childhood  furnished  so  many 
interesting  memories.  When  eleven  years  old  she  went  with  her  father  to  the 
session  of  the  Second  Congress,  in  Philadelphia,  during  the  last  winter  of  the 
presidency  of  Washington,  who  petted  and  remembered  the  little  girl.  She 
heard  his  last  address,  was  allowed  to  witness  his  last  birthnight  ball,  saw  the 
inauguration  of  President  Adams,  at  which  she  sat  in  the  lap  of  Mrs.  Madison. 
Her  father,  in  writing  to  her  mother,  February  23,  1797,  said  :  "  Mrs.  Wolcott 
was  so  kind  as  to  take  Mary  under  her  wing,  by  which  means  she  was  honored 
by  a  seat  in  the  President's  box  through  the  whole  evening,  and  a  seat  at  the  first 
supper  table  near  the  President,  and  by  that  means  had  an  opportunity  of  seeing 
the  brightest  and  most  pleasing  part  of  the  whole  scene  ;  and,  indeed,  she  did 
appear  to  be  highly  delighted.  Mrs.  Washington  took  very  particular  notice 
of  her,  and  often  spoke  very  kindly  to  her,  which  caused  her  to  be  inquired 
out  and  noticed  by  ladies  of  the  first  distincflion,  who  naturally  resorted 
to  the  President's  box  as  the  most  honorable  seat.  One  circumstance  of  good 
fortune  which  has  attended  M.  in  this  business  I  have  not  mentioned,  which 
is  that  no  ladies  under  sixteen  are  admitted  to  these  balls ;  but  Miss  Mary 
had  a  ticket  sent  her  by  the  managers  unsolicited.  Under  these  circumstances  I 
did  not  think  it  was  proper  to  admit  of  her  going  upon  the  floor  to  dance,  though 
it  was  urged  by  some." 

Not  only  to  public  functions  was  the  little  girl  admitted,  but  she  was  privi- 
leged to  have  a  "private  view  "  of  the  "first  gentleman  and  lady  "  of  the  land  ; 


Hillhmisc  Avenue.  ^5 

for  Mary  and  her  father  were  invited  to  tea  at  Mrs.  Washington's.  "  I  went 
with  them  on  Thursday  evening.  We  met  a  polite  reception,  and  the  President 
took  Mary  by  the  hand,  and  spoke  to  her  in  a  very  kind  and  aifedtionate  man- 
ner, with  which  she  seemed  not  a  little  pleased.  They  were  not  thronged  with 
company,  which  gave  us  an  opportunity  of  spending  the  evening  very  agreeably. 
Mrs.  W.  presided  at  the  tea  urn,  and  sent  the  cups  around  to  the  guests  ;  but 
she  and  I^afayette's  son,  the  only  children  there,  sat  by  her  at  the  table  and 
chatted  together. ' ' 

What  a  pretty  pidlure  of  the  children  of  the  republics  of  the  old  world  and 
the  new,  making  acquaintance  with  the  happy  rapidity  of  childhood,  under  the 
approving  glances  of  their  elders,  who  did  ' '  sometimes  counsel  take,  and  some- 
times tea  !" 

It  is  hard  to  believe  that  Washington  was  so  stiff  as  some  would  represent 
him,  when  we  see  him  yield  thus  readily  to  the  sweet  influences  of  children. 

Little  Miss  Mary's  eyes  were  open  to  all  the  sights  of  the  "republican 
court,"  and  her  pen  was  dipped  in  spicy  ink. 

She  wrote,  December  12,  1796:  "I  went  on  Wednesday  last  to  hear  the 
President's  last  speech  to  Congress  ;  the  house  was  very  much  crowded,  but  I 
got  a  very  good  place,  for  the  ladies  crowded  me  quite  into  the  room  ;  but  papa, 
who  sat  about  a  yard  off,  took  me  before  him,  and  I  saw  everything.  The  Presi- 
dent is  the  handsomest  man  that  ever  I  saw,  but  Mrs.  W.  is  not  near  so  handsome. 
I  saw  all  the  foreign  ambassadors  except  the  French.  The  English,  Mr.  I/.,  was 
dressed  in  a  black  coat,  lined  with  white  satin,  and  a  very  fine  white  satin  waist- 
coat embroidered  with  gold  and  silver  and  colored  silks,  and  a  fine  sword  with 
ornaments,  and  a  monstrous  bag  wig ;  he  is  about  seventy  years  old  and  a  very 
ugly  man  as  ever  I  .saw.  He  had  very  fine  lace  rufiles  on.  The  Portuguese 
ambassador  was  dressed  in  the  same  manner  as  the  English,  only  much  finer, 
with  a  blue  coat  and  a  large  silver  star  in  the  same  manner  as  the  king  of  Eng- 
land's picture.  But  the  Spanish  ambas.sador  I  liked  much  the  best.  He  ap- 
peared to  be  about  eighteen  years  of  age  ;  he  is  quite  pretty,  and  was  dressed  in 
a  silk  coat,  with  his  hair  dressed  all  around  and  his  hat  lined  with  white  fur, 
and  a  star  with  a  bunch  of  blue  ribbons  on  it.  The  President  was  dressed  in  a 
black  velvet  coat,  and  wholly  in  black,  and  clean  cambric  ruffles,  which  I  liked 
much  better  than  the  yellow  lace  of  the  fine  ambassadors,  who,  notwithstanding 
all  their  finery,  were  far  surpassed  by  the  plain  neatness  of  the  President." 

Mr.  Hillhouse  wrote  of  a  visit  toMt.  Vernon,  soon  after  Washington's  death  : 
"  Mrs.  W.  was  very  particular  in  asking  after  Mary,  whom  she  fully  and  per- 
fedtly  remembered,  and  expressed  a  strong  desire  to  see  her— wished  she  had 
been  with  me,  and  said  I  must  bring  her  the  next  time  I  came  to  Congress. 
Mrs.  Lewis,  who  was  Miss  Custis  when  Mary  was  in  Philadelphia,  was  also 
particular  in  her  inquiries  after  her,  and  said  they  were  building  a  house  about 
four  miles  from  that  place,  and  expedled  next  spring  to  go  to  housekeeping,  and 
should  be  very  happy  to  have  M.  spend  some  time  with  her.  I  must  own  I  was 
not  a  little  gratified  to  find  the  family  so  partial  to  M.,  the  only  one  of  our  flock 
they  had  an  opportunity  of  knowing." 


76  Hillhouse  Avemie. 

Miss  Mary  Hillhouse  was  born  in  New  Haven,  in  1783,  and  died  there  in  1871. 

Senator  Hillhouse  was  often  called  the  "Sachem"  in  Congress,  on  account 
of  his  strong  Indian  complexion  and  features,  and  a  frequent  joke  was  that  he 
kept  a  hatchet  under  his  papers  on  his  desk.  His  favorite  toast  was,  "  Let  us 
bury  the  hatchet."  The  name  which  clung  to  him  has  been  perpetuated  in 
Sachem's  lane,  now  Sachem  street,  which  crosses  the  avenue  at  the  foot  of  his 
place,  and  in  the  name  of  the  estate  itself,  "Sachem's  Wood,"  although  it  was 
at  first  "High  wood." 

The  avenue  would  be  like  the  arch  without  the  keystone  if  it  should  lose 
the  stately  Hillhouse  place  to  which  it  leads.  Nature  has  showered  her  treas- 
ures on  the  spot.  In  full  view  from  the  hilltop,  West  Rock  and  East  Rock  lift 
their  ruddy,  columned  fronts,  and  city  and  country  are  pleasingly  mingled.  The 
park-like  grounds  are  diversified  by  the  undulations  of  hill  and  valley,  and  the 
original  forest  trees  cast  their  flickering  shadows  on  the  turf.  The  flower  garden 
is  a  mass  of  color  to  inspire  a  Persian  poet,  and  the  wild  flowers  pass  in  long 
procession  under  the  sheltering  trees. 

Best  of  all,  the  gate  stands  open  to  all  who  wish  to  enter  and  enjoy  the  sylvan 
retreat.  In  spring  the  children  seek  there  the  early  wild  flowers,  and  in  winter 
their  snowballs  fly  with  merry  shouts  among  the  trees.  Strangers  drive  there 
without  rebuff',  and  the  contemplative  may  sit  on  the  grassy  slope  and  muse 
away  an  hour,  while  the  grey  squirrels  skip  about  with  all  the  fearlessness  that 
comes  from  ignorance  of  harm.  It  is  hard  to  estimate  the  amount  of  pleasure 
that  has  come  to  the  inhabitants  of  New  Haven  through  this  generous  conduct 
of  the  owners  of  Sachem's  Wood.  The  public  owes  a  debt  of  gratitude  that 
for  generations  the  charms  of  nature  have  been  free  to  all  who  chose  to  go  to 
enjoy  them.  It  is  well  that  that  public  has  shown  itself  worthy  of  the  confidence 
reposed  in  it,  that  marauding  hands  are  not  laid  on  tree  or  shrub,  and  that  the 
traces  of  vandal  fingers  are  seldom  seen. 

"Amid  those  venerable  trees,  the  air 
Seems  hallowed  by  the  breath  of  other  times, 
Companions  of  my  Fathers  !  )-e  have  marked 
Their  generations  pass.     Your  giant  arms 
Shadowed  their  youth,  and  proudly  canopied 
Their  silver  hairs,  when,  ripe  in  years  and  glory, 
These  walks  they  trod  to  meditate  on  Heaven." 

Percy's  Masque^  Act.  II.,  Sc.  i. 


John  Trumbull,  the  Patriot  Painter. 


Painting  is  now  an  established  profession  in  America ;  but  not  so  was  it  a 
century  and  a  quarter  ago,  when  John  Trumbull  was  growing  up  in  Lebanon , 
Connecticut,  a  village  idyllic  in  its  natural  repose,  yet  during  his  youth 
thrilling  with  the  activity 
of  martial  business.  For 
John's  father  was  no  less 
than  Jonathan  Trumbull— the 
man  who  was  governor  for 
fourteen  trying  years ;  who 
was  proudly  called  "the  only 
Colonial  governor  who  held 
office  during  the  Revolution  ' ' ; 
and  to  whom  Washington 
fondly  referred  as  ' '  Brother 
Jonathan,"  thus  originating 
the  name  for  the  pure  Ameri- 
can. It  was  fine  old  stock,  of 
Scotch-English  origin,  puri- 
fied and  intensified  by  New 
England  colonial  life,  and 
enriched  by  the  best  education 
the  land  could  afford.  The  gov- 
ernor himself,  and  his  sons, 
had  gone  to  Harvard  with 
divinity  in  viewi  but  some 
impulse  seemed  to  urge  them 
away  from  the  pulpit  toward 
the  bar,  the  counting-room, 
and  the  magisterial  chair. 

John's  mother.  Faith  Robinson,  was  a  descendant  of  the  famous  Priscilla 
and  John  Alden.  To  this  mother  we  undoubtedly  owe  the  preservation  of  the 
intelledlual  powers  which  gave  us  a  history  on  canvas.  For  during  the  early 
months  of  the  future  painter's  life,  he  was  subjedl  to  convulsions.  A  wise 
physician  examined  the  baby's  head,  and  said  that  no  medicine  could  help,  for 
the  trouble  arose  from  compression  of  the  brain,  caused  by  the  overlapping  ot 
the  bones  of  the  skull.  Death  or  idiocy  must  come  unless  the  mother  would 
patiently  and  persistently  press  apart  the  displaced  edges.     Faith  Trumbull  rcas 


PORTRAIT   OF   TRUMBUI,I„ 

By  Waldo  and  Jewett. 

/«  //le    Vale  Art  School. 


78  John   Tru7nbidl,  the  Patriot  Painter. 

patient  and  persistent, — and  hence  the  painter  of  our  Revolution,  with  a  mind 
clear  until  death  in  his  eighty-eighth  year.* 

Lebanon  possessed  a  school  famous  as  perhaps  the  best  in  New  England, 
kept  by  Nathan  Tisdale,  a  Harvard  graduate.  It  drew  pupils  from  the  South, 
and  even  from  the  West  Indies.  What  the  boys  of  to-day  would  say  of  a  school 
without  vacations,  like  the  "congregations"  that  "ne'er  break  up,"  is  not 
hard  to  guess.  The  result  in  this  case  was  that  at  six  the  little  John  won  in  a 
contest  in  reading  a  portion  of  the  Gospel  of  St.  John  in  the  original  Greek. 
He  says  that  his  knowledge  was  that  of  a  parrot ;  but  we  certainly  do  not  see 
many  such  parrots  now  ! 

Governor  Trumbull  believed  in  the  education  of  women  as  well  as  of  men, 
and  his  two  daughters  were  sent  to  school  in  Boston.  There  they  learned  to 
embroider  (those  wonderful  tombstone  samplers,  probably)  and  to  paint  in  oil. 
The  trophies,  "  two  heads  and  a  landscape,"  were  hung  in  the  parlor,  and  little 
John  gazed  on  them.  He  was  a  born  artist,  and  he  tried  to  imitate.  He  used 
the  sand  on  the  floor  for  a  drawing-board.  We  do  not  learn  that  kitty's  fur 
suffered,  as  in  the  case  of  West ;  but  it  was  still  genius  triumphing  over  obstacles. 
On  the  inside  of  his  closet  door,  the  boy  painted,  with  success  remarkable  for 
untutored  fingers,  a  spirited  figure  of  Brutus.  The  celebrated  Professor  SilH- 
man,  the  elder,  of  Yale,  who  married  Harriet  Trumbull,  the  daughter  of  the 
younger  Gov.  Trumbull,  removed  this  panel,  and  it  is  now  in  the  Wadsworth 
Atheneum  in  Hartford,  a  curious  and  treasured  specimen  of  the  boy's  first 
attempts  to  paint.  Around  the  figure,  with  its  flying  drapery,  are  scattered  the 
dabs  of  paint  made  in  trying  the  brush. 

The  childish  fondness  for  pidture  making  did  not  depart ;  and  when,  at 
fifteen  and  a  half  the  boy  was  ready  to  enter  Harvard  in  the  .second  half  of  the 
junior  year,  he  pleaded  with  his  father  to  be  allowed  to  study  painting  instead. 
At  that  time  Copley  was  in  Boston,  with  a  great  reputation  ;  and  young  Trum- 
bull thought  that  he  might  gain  a  profession  while  studying  with  him,  for  the 
same  money  that  would  take  him  through  college.  Economy  was  to  be  con- 
sidered, for  his  father's  fortune  had  been  swept  away  by  the  storms  of  the  sea. 
The  war  governor  must  have  been  generations  in  advance  of  his  time  ;  for  he 
did  not  ridicule  or  reproach  his  son  for  having  peculiar  aspirations,  but  mildly 
overruled  him  and  sent  him  to  college. 

The  school  without  vacations,  and  the  diligent  reading  of  all  the  history 
and  of  all  the  Greek  and  Latin  authors  at  command  in  Lebanon  not  only  placed 
him  in  the  junior  class,  but  made  it  an  easy  matter  for  him  to  keep  in  advance  of 
most  of  his  classmates.  So  he  filled  his  leisure  hours  by  studying  French 
with  a  French  family  of  Acadian  exiles,  slyly  paying  for  it  out  of  his  pocket 
money,  and  thereby  afterwards  giving  a  pleasant  surprise  to  the  father  in 
Lebanon.  He  had  a  great  treat  in  going  to  see  the  paintings  of  Copley,  then 
living  by  the  Common.  Copley  was  going  out  to  dinner,  and  quite  dazzled  the 
boy  by  his  maroon  suit  and  gold  buttons.  In  his  researches  in  the  college 
library  he  had  found  a  few  books  on  art  and  some  fine  engravings,  besides  Pira- 
nesi's  prints  of  Roman  ruins  and  a  pidlure  of  the  eruption  of  Vesuvius.     A  copy 

*  From  his  Autobiography. 


John   Triutibull,  the  Patriot  Painter. 


79 


which  he  made  in  oil  of  an  engraving  of  a  painting  by  Noel  Coypel,  represent- 
ing Rebecca  at  the  Well,  was  approved  by  Copley,  and  is  now  in  Hartford. 
He  was,  of  course,  dependent  on  his  taste  for  supplying  the  colors. 

Graduated  in  1773,  he  took  up  the  task  of  teaching  in  behalf  of  his  old 
master,  Mr.  Tisdale,  who  was  ill  for  several  months.  Here  was  a  boy  of  seven- 
teen instructing  a  school  of  seventy  or  eighty,  decidedly  mixed,  as  the  subjedts 
for  study  varied  from  A  B  C  to  Latin  and  Greek. 

But  the  sound  of  war  was  in  the  air.  John's  father  was  the  only  patriot  gov- 
ernor in  the  Colonies,  and  his  house  was  a  centre  for  discussions  of  the  burning 
questions  of  the  day.  John  caught  and  fanned  the  enthusiasm,  drilled  a  company, 
and  after  the  magic  call  of 
Lexington  hastened  to  Boston, 
as  a  kind  of  aid  to  General 
Spencer.  There  he  witnessed, 
from  Bunker  Hill,  the  fight 
which  he  has  made  it  possible 
for  us  all  to  see  again  on  his 
canvas.  He  was  in  no  small 
danger  himself  on  that  day  ; 
and  his  beautiful  sister,  the 
wife  of  Colonel  Huntington, 
who  had  gone  with  a  party  of 
young  friends  to  Boston  to  en- 
joy the  novel  scenes  of  a  camp, 
beheld  all  too  soon  the  hor- 
rors of  real  war,  and,  shocked 
by  the  apparently  impending 
fate  of  her  husband  and  brother, 
lost  her  reason,  and  died  in  the 
next  November. 

It  is  not  strange  that  the 
"  Death  of  Warren  at  Bunker's 
Hill"  surpasses  all  of  Trum- 
bull's paintings  in  the  whirl 
and  rush  of  the  combat,  the 
fervor  of  patriotism,  the  con- 
trast of  opposing  passions, 
the  pathos  of  death.  We  all 
know  Bunker  Hill.  How  easy 
now  to  place  on  it,  as  Trum- 
bull shows  us,  the  form  of 
Warren,  sinking  in  death,  but  glowing  with  enthusiasm  !  Pitcairn,  mortally 
wounded,  is  falling  into  the  arms  of  his  son,  and  the  artistic  grouping  brings 
the  patriot  and  the  red-coat  into  striking  opposition.  The  British  General 
Abercrombie  has  just  fallen  at  Warren's  feet,  and  a  grenadier  aims  his  revenging 
bayonet  at  Warren,  while  the  benevolent  Colonel  Small,  his  former  friend,  inter- 


'I'-K^ 


c/iL- 


^r 


^  ^4^  A/i/:  /7S(i>  _ 


John   Tncmbnll,  the  Patriot  Painter, 


81 


poses  with  uplifted  hand  to  save  the  dying  man. 
nam,  the  last  loath  to 
hind.  At  one  side, 
evidently  a  hasty 
figure  and  dress, 
while  his  negro  ser- 
a  backward  gaze  of 
fright.  Dimly  in  the 
fighting  and  retreat- 
while  the  ships  below 
of  smoke  tell  the  tale 
town.  Surely  the 
his  theme  and  his 
of  that  memorable 
lost  the  battle,  but 
The  faces  with  their 
are  nearly  all  por- 
tion is  fine,  the 
crowded  nor  theatri- 
their   own    story     of 


GOVKRNOR    JON-.. ...>-.     iKUMBOIJv,  JR 
In  the  I  'ale  A  rt  School. 


Howe  and  Clinton,  and  Put- 
retreat,  are  seen  be- 
a  young  American, 
volunteer,  of  elegant 
turns  away  in  horror, 
vant  rolls  his  eyes  in 
mingled  curiosity  and 
background  are  seen 
ing  lines  of  troops  ; 
and  the  lurid  clouds 
of  burning  Charles- 
artist  was  inspired  by 
glowing  recollections 
combat,  where  we 
we  "kept  the  hill." 
varied  expression, 
traits,  the  composi- 
figures  are  neither 
cally  posed,  and  tell 
the  thrilling  moment. 


This,  and  the  "  Death  of  Montgomery, "  a  piece  somewhat  similar  in  spirit,  with 
the  light  streaming  on  the  central  figures,  are  justly  called  the  finest  examples 
of  American  historical  painting.. 

To  return  to  1775.  After  Washington's  arrival,  a  plan  of  the  enemy's 
fortifications,  stealthily  made  by  Trum- 
bull, attracted  the  notice  of  the  com- 
mander-in-chief, and  procured  him  an 
appointment  as  second  aid,  Mifilin 
being  first.  After  a  time,  Trumbull 
became  major  of  brigade,  and  in  the 
spring  went  to  New  York  under  Gates, 
who,  on  receiving  his  own  appointment 
to  the  charge  of  the  northern  depart- 
ment, made  Trumbull  his  deputy  adju- 
tant-general. Then  came  the  varied 
scenes  of  army  life,  during  the  campaign 
around  Crown  Point  and  Ticonderoga. 
Trumbull  speaks  of  a  voyage  by  sloops 
up  the  North  River  as  occupying  seven 
or  eight  days. 

The  young  adjutant  was  busy  in 
preparing  and  submitting  plans  for  the 
defence  of  strategic  points  ;  and  it  seems 
now  as  if  much  time  and  blood  might 

,  ,  ,,,,..,  ,  GENERAI,    DAVID    HUMPHREYS. 

have   been  saved     had   his    ideas   been  m  the  vaie  An  school. 


82  John   Trumbull,  the  Patriot  Painter. 

accepted  by  Congress.  He  perceived  and  proved  that  Mt.  Defiance  commanded 
Mt.  Independence,  and  urged  that  it  be  occupied  instead  of  the  latter.  John 
Fiske  says  that  he  then  showed  himself  superior  in  military  sagacity  to  all  the 
older  officers  who  were  around  him. 

Sad  duties  there  were,  too  ;  for  small-pox  and  a  kind  of  yellow  fever  broke 
out  among  the  troops,  and  Trumbull  had  to  make  careful  examinations  and 
returns.     He  says  : — 

"I  found  them  dispersed,  some  few  in  tents,  some  in  sheds,  and  more  under  the  shelter 
of  miserable  bush  huts,  so  totally  disorganized  by  the  death  or  sickness  of  officers  that  the 
distin(5lion  of  regiments  and  corps  was  in  a  great  degree  lost,  so  that  I  was  driven  to  the 
necessity  of  great  personal  examination  ;  and  I  can  truly  say  that  I  did  not  look  into  tent  or 
hut  in  which  I  did  not  find  either  a  dead  or  dying  man." 

After  the  defeat  of  General  Waterbury,  Trumbull  met  the  prisoners  returned 
by  Sir  Guy  Carleton,  and  with  unusual  acuteness  for  so  young  a  man  he  per- 
ceived the  policy  of  the  British  commander's  too  propitiatory  kindness.  He 
hastened  with  his  forebodings  to  Gates,  who  ordered  that  the  returned  men 
should  be  forwarded  to  their  destination  without  communicating  with  their 
former  comrades  and  therebj' reviving  any  latent  affection  for  the  mother  country. 

Trumbull  had  been  serving  for  months  as  deputj'  adjutant-general  under  the 
appointment  of  General  Gates,  who  was  instrudled  by  Congress  to  make  such 
selection  for  the  office  as  he  saw  fit  ;  but  that  whimsical  assembly  delayed  send- 
ing the  commission,  and  when  the  delay  had  become  almost  inexcusable,  sent 
the  commission  dated  three  months  late.  This  affront  was  too  much  for  Trum- 
bull's sensitive  spirit ;  he  declined  the  commission.  Conscious  of  having  served 
with  disinterested  zeal,  and  of  having  gained  the  approval  of  his  general,  he 
perceived  the  tokens  of  jealousies  among  tho.se  in  high  places.  While  Trumbull, 
for  instance,  was  aid  to  Washington  in  1775,  Hancock  had  remarked  that  "that 
family  was  well  provided  for," — two  brothers  of  John  being  in  high  position  ;  to 
which  John  dryly  rejoined:  "We  are  secure  of  four  halters,  if  we  do  not  suc- 
ceed." There  was  a  long  correspondence  about  the  commission  ;  but  Trumbull 
was  firm  in  his  refusal,  and,  full  of  disappointed  patriotism,  rettirned  to  Lebanon 
in  the  spring  of  1777. 

His  first  love,  art,  claimed  him  then,  and  he  went  to  Boston  to  study.  There 
Smybert,  most  wooden  of  painters,  but  deserving  lasting  remembrance  as  the 
first  man  who  made  pidtures  in  America,  and  as  one  who  stimulated  Copley 
and  Trumbull,  had  left  a  studio.  Trumbull  hired  it,  and  found  there  several 
of  Smybert' s  copies  of  celebrated  paintings.  Among  these,  Vandyck's  head  of 
Cardinal  Bentivoglio,  and  Raphael's  Madonna  della  Sedia  aroused  his  ad- 
miration. 

Nevertheless,  he  says,  "  the  sound  of  a  drum  frequently  called  an  involun- 
tary tear  to  my  eye."  Naturally,  when  General  Sullivan  and  Count  d'Estaing 
combined  to  rescue  Rhode  Island  from  the  enemy,  Trumbull  vohinteered  to  give 
his  services  as  aid  to  Sullivan.  The  offer  was  accepted,  and  he  took  an  adtive 
part  in  the  short  and  stirring  campaign,  which  failed  in  its  principal  objedl 
because  the  French  fleet  departed. 


Jolm   Trumbull,  the  Patriot  Painter. 


83 


Then  it  was  that  Trumbull,  arrayed 
in  a  nankeen  suit  and  mounted  on  a 
powerful  baj'  horse,  rode  about  in  full 
view  during  the  long  summer  day,  with 
a  white  handkerchief  tied  around  his 
head,  because  the  wind  had  taken  off 
his  hat  in  the  morning  and,  as  he  says, 
"it  was  no  time  to  dismount  for  a  hat !" 
He  was  sent  by  General  Sullivan  to  the 
top  of  Butts's  Hill,  with  an  order  to 
Colonel  Wigglesworth.  He  had  to 
climb  a  continuous  ascent  of  a  mile  in 
full  view  of  the  enemj^,  and  for  the  last 
half  mile  amid  a  hailstorm  of  bullets. 
He  met  one  friend  with  an  arm  shot  off, 
another  shot  through  the  back,  a  third 
borne  away  to  have  his  leg  amputated. 
On  went  the  volunteer  aid,  to  receive 
from  Colonel  Wigglesworth  the  charac- 
teristic greeting:  "Don't  say  a  word, 
Trumbull  !  I  know  your  errand,  but  • 
don't  speak, — we  will  beat  them  in  a 
moment."     Oh  !  what  stuff  was  in  those 


.r 


^OMyCr^ — - 


*/' 


<f  c 


GENERAI,  HUGH  MKRCHR. 

From  a  Pencil  Sketch . 

I' rum  Trving's  "  Washington,"  by  iiermissif)n  of 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 


impromptu  soldiers!"  Sullivan,  who 
had  watched  him  on  his  dangerous 
mission,  regarded  his  safe  return  as  a 
miracle. 

But  the  brief  campaign  ended,  and 
Trumbull,  almost  ill,  returned  to  Bos- 
ton. The  army  seemed  closed  to  him  ; 
painting  lured,  and  for  a  year  he  studied 
his  art  diligently  in  Boston,  where  he 
became  acquainted  with  the  consul-gen- 
eral of  Great  Britain,  Mr.  Temple, 
afterward  Sir  John  Temple.  Undoubt- 
edly the  spedtacle  of  a  native  of  that 
country  which  had  but  barely  emerged 
from  pioneer  life  and  was  in  the  midst 
of  a  struggle  for  independent  existence 
devoting  himself  to  the  art  of  painting. 


84 


John   Trumbull,  the  Patriot  Painter. 


without  galleries,  schools,  or  teachers,  almost  without  an  example  for  imitation, 
produced  a  deep  impression  on  an  envoy  of  a  country  which  had  been  the  home 
of  Vandyck,  and  even  then  boasted  of  Sir  Joshua.  He  advised  the  young 
soldier-painter  to  go  to  London,  under  the  protedlion  of  his  art,  and  to  study 
with  West.  Through  him,  Lord  George  Germaine  promised  that  Trumbull's 
rebellious  family  and  his  own  participation  in  war  should  be  overlooked,  on 
condition  that  he  would  devote  himself  unreservedly  to  study.  Besides  that, 
his  case  came  under  the  amnesty  proclaimed  by  George  IIL  in  1778. 

Evidently  there  was  a  general  impression  that  he  partook  of  the  Trumbull 
ability,  for  he  was  asked  to  take  charge  of  a  business  venture  which  involved 
crossing  the  ocean  ;  so  with  two  objedls  in  view  he  sailed,  in  May,  1780,  from 


CAPTURE  OF  THE  HESSIANS  AT  TRENTON. 
In  ihe  Yale  Art  School. 

New  London  for  Nantes.  After  a  quick  passage  of  five  weeks,  he  landed  in 
France,  only  to  find  that  British  success  at  Charleston  had  so  lowered  American 
credit  as  to  make  his  commercial  scheme  impradlicable.  In  Paris  he  found  two 
future  presidents,  John  Adams  and  John  Quincy  Adams,  the  latter  then  a  boy 
at  school,  besides  Franklin  and  his  grandson.  Temple  Franklin.  Franklin  gave 
him  a  letter  to  West  ;  and,  happy  in  the  expec5lation  of  at  last  enjoying  pro- 
fessional instru(5lion,  he  went  over  to  London,  where  he  was  received  by  West 
with  charadleristic  cordiality. 

At  that  time,  Trumbull  had  never  had  a  teacher  in  painting,  and  had 
acquired  what  skill  he  had  from  copying  such  paintings  and  engravings  as  he 
could  find.     He  had  not  even  learned  to  help  himself  by  laying  off  the  work  in 


John   Trumbull,  the  Patriot  Painter. 


85 


squares ;  and  West  looked  in  astonishment  as  he  proceeded  with  his  first  task, 
that  of  copying  the  Madonna  delta  Sedia.  When  it  was  done,  the  generous  master 
cried,  "Nature  intended  you  for  a  painter  !  "  At  this  time  Stuart  was  also  a 
pupil  of  West. 

Those  must  have  been  blissful  months  for  the  young  devotee  of  art.  We 
know  that  he  loved  the  work,  because  he  did  not  let  anything,  even  the  wonders 
of  London,  interfere  with  it.  He  kept  his  part  of  the  contract  with  the  British 
government,  and  the  horizon  seemed  clear.  But  in  November  up  came  a  cloud 
of  the  darkest  hue.  Arnold,  whom  he  had  known  as  a  brilliant  patriot,  had 
plunged  into  infamy.  Andre  had  suffered  the  penalty  of  a  spy  ;  and  the  wrath 
of  England  gave  the  American  tories  in  lyondon  a  chance  to  carry  out  their  spite 


toward  the  jealously 
ernor  Trumbull, 
friend.  How  Trum- 
place  himself  in  such 
almost  inconceivable; 
intentions  and  the 
dudt  probably  led 
same  in  other  people, 
nation  on  being  sud- 
high  treason  !  Listen 
high-spirited  youth, 
home,  when  he  bursts 
of  the  tedious  exam- 
clamation  :  "  I  am  an 
is  Trumbull ;  I  am  a 
you  call  the  rebel 
cut ;  I  have  served 
army  ;    I    have    had 


CAPTAIN  THOMAS  SEVMORE. 
In  the  Vale  Art  School. 


watched  son  of  Gov- 
Washington's  trusted 
bull  had  ventured  to 
a  den  of  lions  is 
but  the  purity  of  his 
rectitude  of  his  con- 
him  to  expecft  the 
Judge  of  his  conster- 
denly  arrested  for 
to  the  impetuous  and 
proud  of  his  place  at 
into  the  impertinence 
ination  with  the  ex- 
American  ;  my  name 
son  of  him  whom 
governor  of  Connecti- 
in  the  rebel  American 
the  honor  of  being 
him  whom    you  call 


an     aid-de-camp     to 

the  rebel  General  Washington  !" 

After  this  concise  autobiography,  he  was  treated  with  more  respedl ;  but  no 
representations  of  neutral  condudt  saved  him  from  a  night  in  Tothill-Fields 
Bridewell.  He  slept  that  night  in  the  bed  of  a  highwayman  !  Visions  of  the 
dignity  of  the  governor's  home  in  shaded  Lebanon  must  have  risen  often  that 
night,  with  the  wondering  thought  of  what  father  and  mother  would  think  of 
art  now.  By  his  own  quickness  and  the  intervention  of  Lord  Germaine,  he  was 
saved  from  imprisonment  in  Clerkenwell,  the  only  criminal  prison  then  left  in  Lon- 
don, and  was  enabled  to  choose  his  cage.  Rejecting  the  costly  dignity  of  the 
Tower,  he  preferred  to  return  to  Tothill-Fields  Bridewell,  where,  for  a  guinea  a 
week,  he  had  a  good  room  in  which  to  be  locked  up  for  eight  months. 

West,  himself  on  rather  insecure  ground  as  a  lover  of  his  native  land, 
obtained  an  audience  with  the  King,  who,  after  hearing  the  story,  ejaculated  : 
"  I  pity  him  from  my  soul  !     But,  West,  go  to  Mr.  Trumbull   immediately,  and 


86 


John   Trumbull,   the  Patriot  Painter. 


pledge  to  him  my  royal  promise  that,  in  the  worst  possible  event  of  the  law,  his 
life  shall  be  safe." 

At  last,  through  Burke's  intercession,  and  with  West  and  Copley  as  sureties, 
he  was  told  that  he  might  go,  not  to  return  until  peace  should  be  restored.  With 
great  store  of  meditation  on  the  vicissitudes  of  life,  and  a  copy  of  a  Correggio 
made  during  his  imprisonment,  the  Madonna  and  infant  Saviour  from  the  St. 
Jerome  at  Parma,  now  in  the  Yale  Gallery,  he  sought  Amsterdam,  as  the  best 
port  of  embarkation.  There  he  found  letters  from  his  father,  empowering  him  to 
negotiate  a  loan  for  Conne(5ticut.  John  Adams  was  there  on  the  same  errand  for 
the  United  States,  but  for  both  bad  news  from  America  rendered  the  attempt  vain. 


THOMAS   MIFFI,IN. 


OIJVER   EIvIvSWORTH. 


In  the  Yale  Art  School. 


Setting  out  on  the  famous  frigate  South  Carolina,  Commodore  Gillon,  August 
12,  Trumbull  experienced  adventures  enough  to  fill  a  second  ^neid.  During 
the  voyage  of  four  months,  they  were  tossed  about  from  the  Texel  to  the  mouth 
of  the  Elbe,  from  the  Orkneys  to  Spain,  from  the  Bay  of  Biscay  to  Boston 
Harbor.  Once  Commodore  Barney,  who  was  returning  from  imprisonment  in 
England,  rushed  on  deck  and  saved  them  from  imminent  wreck  ;  and  again,  their 
last  dollar  was  required  to  pay  Spanish  boatmen  to  overtake  their  retreating 
ship.  Having  escaped  perils  of  fogs  and  gales,  of  loosened  cannon,  of  lack  of 
food,  of  British  cruisers  and  Spanish  detentions,  of  Cape  Ann  rocks,  and  of  three 
days'  Massachusetts  snow-storms,  the  wanderer  at  last  reached  Lebanon  alive, 
in  January,  1782.     It  is  not  surprising  that  he  was  ill  for  months. 

Nothing  daunted  his  zeal  for  art ;  and  after  recovery  he  had  one  more  con- 
ference with  his  father  on  his  life  work.  Painting  won  the  day  over  law  ;  and, 
satisfying  himself  with  the  parting  shot,  "  Conne(5licut  is  not  Athens  !"  the  old 
governor  yielded.  In  December,  1783,  John  returned  to  London,  and  to  West's 
studio.     At  this  time  Lawrence  was  often  a  fellow  painter.     This  sojourn  in 


Jolui   TruinbuU,  the  Patriot  Painter. 


87 


London  was  a  very  important  one  for  Trumbull,  for  during  it  he  really  decided 
on  his  career  as  a  historical  painter.  His  first  composition  of  that  kind  was 
done  while  visiting  the  Rev.  Mr.  Preston  in  Kent.  It  was  on  paper,  in  India 
ink,— "The  Death  of  General  Frazer."  Both  "  Bunker's  Hill  "  and  the  "Death 
of  Montgomery  ' '  were  painted  in  the  studio  of  West,  who  urged  him  to  devote 
himself  to  scenes  of  the  American  Revolution.  It  was  then  that  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds,  at  a  dinner  given  by  West,  admired  the  yet  unfinished  "Bunker's 
Hill,"  attributing  it  to  the  host  and  complimenting  him  on  his  improvement  in 
color.  It  happened  that  some  months  before  Trumbull  had  taken  to  Reynolds 
for  advice  some  portraits  of  Colonel  Wadsworth  and  his  son,  only  to  be  snubbed 


COLONEI-   JKRKMIAH    WAUSVVORTH 

AND    HIS   SON    DANIET,. 

Fainted  in  London  by  Tritnibidl. 


DANIEL    WADSWORTH, 

Of  Hartford. 

From  t/w portrait  by  7'rumbull, 


by  a  snappish  remark  about  "  the  coat  looking  like  bent  tin."*  Sir  Joshua's 
confusion  on  finding  out  who  was  being  praised  quite  satisfied  the  young  painter. 

The  best  way  of  making  these  historical  pidlures  pay  was  to  seek  sub- 
scribers for  engravings  of  them  ;  and  the  effort  to  procure  the  plates  and  the 
subscriptions  involved  much  travel,  delay,  and  expense.  In  the  course  of  these 
journeys,  the  painter  met  both  adventures  and  great  men.  A  letter  to  Le  Brun 
in  Paris  introduced  him  to  the  artistic  world  there,  and  notably  to  David  and  the 
English  miniature  painter,  Cosway. 

Jefferson  was  then  in  Paris  as  our  minister  to  France.  He  was  greatly  inter- 
ested in  the  projedlof  a  revolutionary  series,  and  invited  Trumbull  to  visit  him 
at  his  house,  the  Grille  de  Chaillot.     Thus,  with  the  advice  and  adlually  under 


*  The  pidlure  is  now  in  the  Wadsworth  Atheneum,  Hartford. 


88 


JoJui    Trtimbull,  the  Patriot  Painter. 


the  roof  of  the  writer  of  the  immortal  paper,  the  painting  of  the  "  Declaration 
of  Independence"  was  begun.  Trumbull  took  unbounded  pains  in  making 
this  a  trustworthy  memorial  of  the  momentous  scene,  and  years  were  spent  in 
securing  the  portraits.  Says  he :  "  Mr.  Hancock  and  Samuel  Adams  were 
painted  in  Boston  ;  Mr.  Edward  Rutledge,  in  Charleston,  S.  C. ;  Mr.  Wythe, 
at  Williamsburg,  in  Virginia  ;  Mr.  Bartlett,  at  Exeter,  in  New  Hampshire,  etc." 
Of  some  of  the  signers,  already  dead,  no  portraits  existed  ;  but  no  imaginary 
heads  were  introduced.  What  an  achievement  it  was  to  fix  on  canvas  the 
features  and  expression  of  forty-seven  men  who  were  in  Congress  assembled  on 
that  July  day  ! 


THE    DECIvARATIOX    OF    INDEPENDENCE. 
I»  the  Koiunda  of  the  Capitol^  Washington. 

When  we  enter  that  sacred  room  in  old  Independence  Hall  in  Philadelphia, 
the  present  fades  away;  the  assemblage  conjured  to  life  by  Trumbull's  wand 
rises  as  the  reality.  Every  schoolboy  knows  it, — the  colonial  room,  the  dull  red 
curtains,  the  flags  taken  at  St.  John's,  the  dignified  dress  and  furniture,  the 
groups  of  expedlant  members,  the  alert,  attentive  face  of  Hancock  in  the  chair, 
the  solemn  hush  over  all,  as  the  five  men,  grouped  by  the  artist  as  they  truly 
are  in  our  thoughts,  present  the  paper  fraught  with  such  consequences.  There 
they  are  :  John  Adams  in  brown  cloth,  his  broad,  enlightened  views  showing 
plainly  on  his  handsome  face ;  Roger  Sherman,  firm  as  a  rock,  with  his  tall 
form,  and  face  full  of  common  sense  ;  Livingston,  looking  at  it  as  a  wise  business 
transaction  ;  the  venerable  Franklin,  his  eyes  turned  to  heaven  in  philosophic 
contemplation  of  the  results  of  their  adl ;  in  the  middle,  the  fiery  Jefferson,  in 
plum-colored  velvet  coat,  one  step  in  advance,  while  presenting  the  document 


John   Trumhdl,   the  Patriot  Painter. 


89 


for  which  his  pen  is  responsible.  You  feel  the  silence  which  in  one  moment  will 
be  broken  by  irrevocable  words  ;  you  know  that  soon  one  after  another  will 
come  forward  to  sign  away  his  safety  with  England, — that  the  Liberty  Bell  will 
peal  forth  above  their  heads,— that  a  nation  will  be  born. 

But  it  was  long  before  Trumbull  completed  the  work  so  auspiciously  planned 
in  company  with  Jefferson.  In  1786,  happy  in  the  approbation  given  to  his 
pidlures  in  Paris,  he  left  the  brilliant  society  there,  splendid  even  when  within 
the  shadow  of  coming  events,  and  travelled  to  Stuttgart  to  attend  to  the  engrav- 
ing of  his  two  historical  works.     He  had,  as  usual,  a  series  of  interesting  experi- 


THE   SURRENDER    OF   CORNWALIJS. 

In  the  Rotunda  o/  the  Capitol. 

ences.  He  was  alert  for  everything  pi(5luresque  ;  old  castles  and  churches, 
peasant  life,  galleries  and  all.  His  pencil  sketches  made  during  the  trip  refledt 
the  varied  interest  of  what  he  saw.  The  Rhine  smiled  and  frowned  as  is  its 
wont ;  and  even  now  the  painter's  words  sparkle  with  the  fun  of  one  day's 
voyage  in  a  kind  of  row-boat,  with  a  small  mixed  company  of  queerly  assorted 
but  really  congenial  people,  who  ate  their  cold  chicken  from  pieces  of  paper, 
distributed  the  two  wine  glasses  between  the  men  and  the  women,  and  all 
chattered  in  their  various  languages.  Then  a  fierce  storm  swept  down  on  them, 
driving  them  to  the  bank  and  the  shelter  of  osiers. 

Through  storm  and  sunshine,  on  her  way  home  after  two  years  in  Lausanne, 
flits  the  lovely  daughter  of  Gen.  Gresnier  de  Breda  with  her  pretty  face  and 
bewildering  flutter  of  piquant  headgear.  The  tale  ends  properly  with  a  dinner 
invitation  and  addresses  exchanged  with  the  pretty  girl's  papa  and  mamma. 


WASHINGTON. 

In  the  Yale  Art  School. 


John   TnimbuU,   Uic  Patriot  Painter.  91 

In  London  again,  he  gave  careful  study  to  the  composition  and  preparation 
of  those  war  scenes  which  were  then  his  absorbing  interest.  Then  he  painted 
John  Adams  with  "the  powder  combed  out  of  his  beautiful  hair,"  and  the 
"Sortie  from  Gibraltar,"  called  by  Horace  Walpole  "the  finest  pidlure  he  had 
seen  painted  north  of  the  Alps."  It  made  enough  of  a  sensation  to  arouse  the 
Marquis  of  Hastings  to  forbid  British  officers  to  patronize  anything  "done  by  a 
Trumbull."  Trumbull  refused  six  thousand  dollars  for  it.  The  painting  is 
now  in  the  Boston  Athenaeum.  It  is  not  strange  that  one  so  constantly  in  the 
societ}'  of  famous  men  in  L,ondon  and  Paris  should  multiply  the  number  of  his 
portraits  of  American  and  English  and  French  officers. 

Trumbull  witnessed  the  outbreak  of  the  French  Revolution  in  Paris  in  1789, 
saw  the  Bastile  fall,  and  attended  L,afayette  when  he  calmed  a  French  mob. 
While  they  were  breakfasting  together,  Lafayette  spread  before  him  the  true 
objecflof  his  party,  and  uttered  prophetic  warnings  as  to  the  danger  which  would 
follow  any  ascendency  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans — words  printed  on  Trumbull's 
mind  by  succeeding  events.  Lafayette  wrote  to  him  in  later  years,  expressing 
most  lively  appreciation  of  his  works  and  asking  him  to  paint  the  Battle  of  Mon- 
mouth,* as  involving  many  portraits  precious  to  himself. 

The  French  Revolution  in  many  ways  was  a  decided  blight  to  Trumbull's 
prosperity.  Jefferson,  still  our  minister  in  Paris,  offered  him  the  position  of 
his  private  secretary.  He  declined  this,  as  well  as  a  mission  to  the  Barbary 
States,  mainly  because  he  wished  to  devote  himself  to  finishing  his  historical 
paintings  and  securing  subscribers  for  engravings  from  them  ;  but  he  had  the 
chagrin  to  find,  on  returning  to  the  United  States  for  that  purpose,  that  the 
whole  population  was  so  absorbed  in  abusing  or  advocating  the  performances  of 
the  French  as  to  leave  small  chance  for  interest  in  the  portrayal  of  the  struggle 
through  which  we  had  just  passed.  Still  the  subscription  list  was  headed  by 
the  name  of  Washington  (four  copies),  followed  by  Hamilton,  Jay,  Adams  and 
all  the  leading  men  of  the  country. 

When  Jay  went  to  England  as  envoy  extraordinary  to  negotiate  a  treaty, 
Trumbull  accepted  an  offer  to  be  his  secretary.  After  several  busy  months,  the 
treaty  was  completed.  Apparently,  the  memory  which  was  strong  at  six,  had 
not  failed  at  thirty-eight  ;  for  when  Jay  asked  him  to  commit  to  memory,  word 
by  word,  the  whole  treaty,  in  order  to  transmit  it  safely  to  Mr.  Monroe  in  Paris, 
he  did  so. 

Col.  Trumbull  had  been  arrested  in  London  for  high  treason,  and  now  found 
himself  under  injurious  suspicion  in  Paris.  However,  claiming  immunity  as  an 
artist,  he  pursued  his  way  to  Stuttgart,  to  hasten  the  delayed  engraving.  But 
the  way  was  beset  by  perils  of  contending  armies  ;  and  one  night  at  Miihlhausen, 
he  was  barred  from  either  bed  or  carriage  by  the  presence  of  the  French  general 
who  had  his  headquarters  there.  In  the  crowd  he  met  the  old  general,  who 
"looked  at  me  keenly  and  asked  bluntly,  'Who  are  you — an  Englishman  ?' 
'No,  general,  I  am  an  American  of  the  United  States.'      'Ah!  do  you  know 

*  A  painting  of  the  Battle  of  Monmouth,  by  Trumbull,  but  not  quite  finished,  is  in  the 
Young  Men's  Institute  Library,  in  New  Britain,  Conn. 


92 


John   Trumbull,  the  Patriot  Painter. 


Conned;icut?'  'Yes,  sire,  it  is  my  native  state.'  'You  know  then,  the  good 
Governor  Trumbull?'  'Yes,  general,  he  is  mj^  father!'  '  Oh,  mon  Dieu,  que 
ie  suis  charme  !  I  am  delighted  to  see  a  son  of  Governor  Trumbull.  Entrez, 
entrez, — you  shall  have  supper,  bed,  everything  in  the  house.'  I  soon  learned 
that  the  old  man  had  been  in  the  legion  of  the  Duke  de  I^auzun,  who  had  been 
quartered  in  my  native  village  during  the  winter  which  I  passed  in  prison  in 

London,  and  he  had  heard 
me  much  spoken  of  there. 
Of  course  I  found  myself  in 
excellent  quarters.  The  old 
general  kept  me  up  almost  all 
night,  inquiring  of  everything 
and  everybody  in  America, 
especially  of  the  people  in 
Lebanon,  and  above  all,  the 
family  of  Huntington,  with 
whom  he  had  been  quar- 
tered." 

Again,  in  1797,  on  Trum- 
bull's last  visit  to  France,  he 
was  in  still  greater  danger 
from  the  Terrorists.  His 
favorite  dress,  gray  cloth  with 
black  velvet  cape,  happened 
to  be  of  the  colors  regarded 
by  the  revolutionists  as  a 
badge  of  hostility.  He  was 
suspedted,  watched,  followed. 
With  difficulty  he  procured 
a  passport  for  a  necessary  trip 
to  Stuttgart. 

On  his  return  to  Paris 
the  espionage  was  still  closer, 
and  he,  in  common  with  our  envoys,  felt  that  the  worst  might  come  at  any 
moment.  During  his  stay  in  America,  Talleyrand  had  been  treated  with  great 
hospitality  by  Trumbull's  brother,  then  speaker  of  the  house,  as  well  as  by 
King  and  Gore,  friends  of  Trumbull  ;  but  now  he  left  his  letter  unanswered  for 
weeks,  and  was  unmoved  by  his  appeals,  even  while  inviting  him  to  dine  with 
Mme.  de  Stael  and  Lucien  Bonaparte.  At  last,  to  his  dismay,  he  found  that 
his  name  was  on  the  list  of  suspedled.  Was  the  guillotine  to  be  the  end  ? 
Then,  in  despair,  he  bethought  him  of  his  former  friend,  the  great  painter,  David. 
David,  who,  although  deeply  infatuated  by  the  carnage  due  to  his  party, 
could  yet  stop  to  do  a  friendly  deed,  greeted  him  cordially,  told  him  to  get  the 
Bunker  Hill  pi(5lure,  and  to  go  with  him  to  the  police.  What  a  change  !  When 
he  entered  arm  in  arm  with  the  "  Citoyen  "   David,   and  bearing  the  memorial 


PRESIDENT  DWIGHT. 
In  the  Yale  A  rt  School. 


John    Trumbull,   flic  Patriot  Painter. 


93 


of  a  fight  for  Freedom,  the  sneers  of  the  Frenchmen  became  smiles,  and  the  pass- 
port was  readily  given,  with  many  apologies.  We  can  understand  how  Trumbull 
lost  no  time  in  hastening  from  Paris,  his  route  to  Calais  even  then  beset  with 
adventures,  and  how  he  eagerly  offered  seventy  guineas  to  be  taken  out  to  the 
Dover  packet,  then  in  the  roads.  Even  when  on  English  soil,  he  must  have 
felt  twice  to  be  sure  that  his  head  was  on  his  shoulders  ! 

During  this  time, 
he  had  an  opportunity 
to  know  Jay  thorough- 
ly, and  we  can  perceive 
that  intimate  knowl- 
edge in  the  portrait 
he  has  left  of  the  stain- 
less judge.  Various 
positions  of  trust  were 
offered  by  govern- 
ment ;  he  accepted 
that  of  fifth  commis- 
sioner on  the  board  ap- 
pointed by  the  two 
nations  to  execute  the 
seventh  article  in  the 
' '  treaty  of  amitj^  com- 
merce and  naviga- 
tion," just  concluded. 
It  was  a  position  of 
great  delicac}^  involv- 
ing both  impartiality 
and  firm  decision.  He 
seems  to  have  per- 
formed his  duties  ably 
and  conscientiously. 
The  other  commis- 
sioners were  John 
Wickoff,  John  Anstey, 
Christopher  Gore  (his  college  friend)  and  William  Pinckney.  The  work  of  the 
commission  went  on  from  1796  to  1804.  The  report  of  the  proceedings,  sub- 
mitted to  our  government,  perished  in  the  flames  of  the  war  of  181 2. 

About  1800,  Trumbull  had  married  the  beauty  whose  portrait  is  almost  her 
only  history.  It  has  been  said  that  "Her  early  name  and  lineage  were  never 
divulged."  But  we  know  that  she  was  an  English  woman,  Sarah,  the  daughter 
of  Sir  John  Hope  ;  and  as  we  gaze  on  the  exquisite  portrait  which  is  her  hus- 
band's memorial  of  her  in  the  Trumbull  gallery,  we  feel  that  we  do  not  need  to 
know  more.  Daintiness  is  written  all  over  her  delicate  features,  her  rose-leaf 
skin,  her  ruffles,  her  fluffy  locks  escaping  from  the  coy  cap,  and  that  evanescent. 


AtEXANDBR  HAMILTON. 
Front  the  painting  in  the  Essex  Institute,  Salem,  Mass, 


\ 


94  John   Trumbull,   the  Patriot  Painter. 

enchanting  smile.  Many  stories  are  still  told  of  her  eccentricities,  of  her  unfort- 
unate seasons  of  being  overcome  by  something  stronger  than  tea  ;  but  Trum- 
bull's tribute  was : — 

"In  April,  1824,  I  had  the  misfortune  to  lose  my  wife,  who  had  been  the  faithful  and 
beloved  companion  of  all  the  vicissitudes  of  twenty -four  years.  She  was  the  perfe6l  personifi- 
cation of  truth  and  sincerity, — wise  to  counsel,  kind  to  console,  by  far  the  more  important  and 
better  half  of  me,  and  with  all,  beautiful  beyond  the  usual  beauty  of  women." 

After  sixty-three  days  spent  on  the  Atlantic,  Trumbull  landed  once  more 
in  his  own  country.  He  found  himself  welcomed  by  his  family  and  by  the 
Cincinnati  of  New  York,  but  under  a  political  cloud  as  a  Federalist  and  follower 
of  Washington  rather  than  of  Jefferson.  Shut  out  from  painting  in  Boston  by 
the  fadt  that  Stuart  had  just  been  invited  to  settle  there,  he  selecfled  New  York 
for  the  pradtice  of  his  profession.  Then  it  was  that  he  painted  the  portraits  of 
Jay  and  Hamilton  for  the  City  Hall,  and  those  of  Stephen  Van  Rensselaer  and 
the  first  President  Dwight,  now  in  the  gallery  of  the  Yale  Art  School.  He  met 
Hamilton  and  Burr  at  a  dinner  on  the  Fourth  of  July— the  one  brilliant,  the 
other  silent ;  a  few  days  later,  the  nation  was  in  mourning  over  that  fatal  duel. 

At  various  times  Trumbull  had  tried  business  ventures,  investing  in  valu- 
able paintings,  or  in  wine  and  brandy,  as  opportunity  offered  ;  but  the  winds  and 
the  waves  were  always  destru6live  when  his  cargoes  were  on  the  sea. 

London  drew  him  once  more  across  the  water,  in  1808  ;  and  the  congenial 
atmosphere  helped  him  to  produce  his  best  works  there.  The  crudity  of  our 
own  life  then  afforded  little  encouragement  for  the  aesthetic .  The  war  of  181 2 
prevented  return  from  England,  and  involved  him  in  debts  which  weighed  him 
down  for  years.  But  after  his  return,  in  1815,  the  cheriished  idea  of  a  series  of 
national  pidtures  was  presented  to  Congress,  and  was  urged  by  Judge  Nicholson 
and  Mr.  Timothy  Pitkin.  It  met  favor,  and,  in  1817,  Congress  formally  com- 
missioned Trumbull  to  execute  for  the  Capitol  four  commemorative  paintings. 
He  had  hoped  for  eight ;  but,  in  consultation  with  President  Madison,  who  was 
empowered  by  Congress  to  assign  the  subjects,  a  satisfadlory  choice  was  made. 

The  Declaration,  of  course,  stood  foremost.  The  two  surrenders  of  entire 
armies,  Burgoyne's  and  Cornwallis's,  extraordinary  and  momentous  events,  came 
next ;  for  the  fourth,  Trumbull  suggested  Washington  resigning  his  commission, 
as  of  moral  significance.  After  more  than  seven  years  these  works  were  com- 
pleted and  carefully  placed  in  the  Rotunda  of  the  Capitol  at  Washington,  where 
for  generations  the  crowds  of  visitors  have  paused  to  gaze  upon  them.  Trumbull 
had  been  coUedling  portraits  for  these  works  for  years  ;  he  had  studied  the 
details  of  dress  and  weapons  ;  he  had  visited  the  .scene  of  each  event.  He  felt  it 
to  be  the  work  of  his  life,  and  he  spared  no  effort  in  the  execution  or  in  arrange- 
ments for  the  preservation  of  the  pictures  after  they  were  placed  on  the  wall. 

In  the  two  surrenders,  the  faces  express  most  vividly  the  feelings  of  the 
hour.  The  Surrender  of  Cornwallis  gave  the  painter  more  trouble  in  composition 
than  any  other  ;  for,  as  he  says,  the  event  was  purely  formal,  and  the  landscape 
flat.  But  he  had  made  the  portraits  of  the  French  officers  in  Jefferson's  Paris 
home,  long  ago,  in  1786.     He  succeeded  in  grouping  naturally  the  chiefs  of  the 


John   Trumbull,  the  Patriot  Painter.  95 

three  powers  in  the  center.  Irving  and  Trumbull,  with  pen  and  pencil,  depi(5l 
the  scene  alike  :  General  Lincoln  on  his  white  horse,  Rochambeau  at  the  head 
of  the  French  troops,  the  British  sullenly  yielding  to  fate,  Washington,  in  blue 
and  buff,  on  his  bay  horse,  in  the  calm  dignity  of  success.  If  you  go  to  that  yet 
colonial  city,  Annapolis,  they  will  show  you  with  pride,  in  the  fine  old  capitol, 
the  room  where  Washington  resigned  his  commission.  You  are  allowed  to  stand 
on  the  "very  spot"  covered  by  Washington's  feet  then.  All  is  carefully  pre- 
served as  Trumbull  gave  it,  except  the  balcony,  which  the  eye  vainly  seeks, 
expedting  to  behold  Martha  Washington  and  Eleanor  Custis  viewing  the  scene 
with  eager  attention. 

Trumbull  did  not  wish  to  "  sink  into  premature  imbecility"  after  finishing 
these  works.  Although  then  seventy-two,  he  began  a  series  of  small  paintings 
of  the  striking  events  of  the  Revolution.  Of  these,  in  size  between  the  Rotunda 
piAures  and  the  originals  in  New  Haven,  the  Hartford  Atheneum  possesses  a  num- 
ber— the  Battles  of  Bunker  Hill,  Princeton,  Trenton,  Quebec,  and  the  Declaration. 
The  same  gallery  contains  many  other  interesting  pi6tures  by  Trumbull,  and, 
particularly,  one  called  his  last  portrait.  It  is  a  delightful  specimen  of  his  work, 
but  sad  to  say,  the  name  of  the  refined  subjedt  is  lost.  We  know  that  he  is  an 
artist,  by  the  book  of  sketches  in  his  hand.  Trumbull  had  a  studio  in  New  York 
at  various  places  ;  once,  on  Broadway,  in  a  house  afterward  the  Globe  Hotel. 

His  merits  as  a  painter  are  not  due  entirely  to  our  imaginations  investing 
him  with  a  halo  as  a  pioneer  in  art.  War  scenes  and  great  people  were  Trumbull's 
subjedls,  and  he  felt  the  dignity  of  his  profession.  His  portraits  have  the  charm 
of  vividness  and  expression  of  chara(5ter.  After  a  hundred  years,  the  colors  are 
still  clear  and  harmonious  ;  and  the  painter  seems  to  have  struck  a  happy  mean 
between  the  sallowness  of  Copley  and  the  florid  color  of  Stuart.  We  feel  that  we 
are  looking  at  the  real  people  when  we  see  these  faces,  certainly  one  test  of  a 
good  portrait. 

Trumbull's  works,  although  largely  in  New  Haven,  are  scattered  in  differ- 
ent cities.  New  York  has  two  in  the  L,enox  Library  and  four  in  the  City  Hall — 
Jay,  Hamilton,  a  full  length  of  Washington  with  a  background  of  Broadway  in 
ruins  and  the  British  ships  departing,  and  Gen.  George  Clinton  with  the  British 
storming  Fort  Montgomery  in  the  Highlands  where  he  commanded.  This 
background  was  considered  his  best  by  the  artist.  In  the  Historical  Society's 
collection  are  six  or  seven  portraits,  among  them  good  ones  of  the  sturdy  old 
divine.  Dr.  Smalley,  of  Asher  B.  Durand,  as  well  as  of  Br}'an  Rossiter  in  mili- 
tary dress,  and  an  excellent  miniature  of  John  Lawrance.  The  best  of  all  his 
portraits  is  the  very  beautiful  and  well-preserved  one  of  Hamilton,  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  Metropolitan  Museum. 

At  the  National  Museum,  in  Washington,  are  the  portraits  of  President  and 
Mrs.  Washington,  painted  in  1794.  In  private  families  in  Connedlicut  and 
Massachusetts,  as  well  as  in  the  Boston  Athenaeum  and  the  Hartford  Wadsworth 
Atheneum,  are  other  works.  Norwich  can  boast  of  ten  portraits  and  miniatures 
by  him,  almost  a  family  gallery — the  war  governor,  the  father.  Faith  Trumbull, 
the  mother,  Sarah  Hope,  the  wife,  Faith  Huntington,  the  sister  of  the  painter. 


96 


John   Tnunbidl,   the  Patriot  Painter. 


\ 


lost  so  early,  among  them.  The 
four  small  historical  paintings 
of  Revolutionary  scenes  in  the 
Yale  gallery,  which  he  did  be- 
fore executing  the  large  replicas 
in  the  Rotunda  at  Washington, 
are  always  regarded  as  far  supe- 
rior to  the  latter  in  artistic 
merit. 

Trumbull  was  deeply  in- 
terested in  the  American  Acad- 
emy of  the  Fine  Arts,  which 
was  founded  in  1812,  in  New 
York,  with  Edward  L,ivingston 
as  president  and  Peter  Irving 
as  secretary.  Trumbull  was 
the  only  artist  on  the  board. 
Sometimes  in  a  riding  school  in 
Greenwich  street,  near  the  Bat- 
tery, a  very  fashionable  situa- 
tion, sometimes  in  the  Custom  House,  and 
sometimes  in  the  "old  Almshouse,"  on 
the  north  side  of  the  Park,  fronting  on 
Chambers  street,  it  struggled  to  attradl  the 
public.  In  1816,  in  the  latter  place,  Trum- 
bull was  president,  and  his  pidtures,  now 
belonging  to  Yale,  were  there  in  one  gal- 
lery. 
Says  Daniel  Huntington:  "Trumbull  had  a 
large  studio  at  the  building,  and  there  the  writer, 
when  a  child,  saw  him  at  work  on  his  pidlures,  and 
can  never  forget  his  dignified  appearance,  his  courte- 
ous manners  of  the  old  school." 

The  coUedtion  of  casts  owned  by  the  Academy 
was  rare  and  costly  then,  and  students  were  restri(5ted 
in  using  it  to  a  few  morning  hours.  On  one  eventful 
morning,  two  young  men,  Thomas  S.  Cummings, 
afterwards  the  historian  of  the  National  Academy  of 
Design,  and  Frederick  Styles  Agate,  were  refused 
admittance  by  the  janitor.  Trumbull  defended  the 
janitor.  A  meeting  of  the  disaifedled  was  held  in  the 
rooms  of  S.  F.  B.  Morse  ;  and,  in  1825,  the  National 
Academy  of  Design  was  founded,  with  the  purpose  of 
securing  greater  freedom  for  pradtice.  This  revolt 
from  oppression  drew  forth  heavy  new.spaper  cannon- 


John   Trumbull,   the  Patriot  Painter.  97 

ading  from  both  sides.  All  this  hurt  Trumbull,  sensitive  after  the  battering 
of  life. 

We  hear  of  an  evening  when  he  walked  into  the  room  where  the  seceding 
students  were  at  work,  took  the  president's  chair,  and  solemnly  asked  for  signa- 
tures in  the  matriculation  book.  After  waiting  long,  he  had  to  depart  without 
the  names.  Yet  we  learn  that  these  same  students  borrowed  casts  from  the 
academy,  so  we  infer  that  the  hostilitj'  was  not  absolutely  bloodthirsty. 

Trumbull  was  never  able  to  amass  a  fortune.  War,  which  helped  him  to 
gain  so  rich  an  experience  of  the  world,  and  was  really  the  foundation  of  his 
fame,  always  blighted  his  finances.  In  1837,  he  made  an  arrangement  with  the 
Corporation  of  Yale  College,  whereby  the  coUedlion  of  his  paintings,  known  as 
the  Trumbull  Gallery,  became  the  property  of  the  college,  in  return  for  an  annu- 
ity of  one  thou-sand  dollars,  to  be  paid  in  quarterly  instalments  during  his  life. 
It  was  a  bargain  creditable  and  satisfactory  to  both  parties  concerned.  The 
painter  was  happy  in  seeing  his  life  work  in  tender,  reverent  hands,  and  in  the 
knowledge  that  the  revenue  from  admission  was  helping  some  needy  student. 
From  1837  to  1841  he  lived  in  New  Haven,  where  he  had  friends,  being  con- 
nedled  by  marriage  with  Professor  Silliman,  the  elder. 

Passing  away  in  New  York,  his  body  was  placed  in  a  vault  in  New  Haven 
prepared  by  himself  on  the  Yale  Campus,  beneath  the  Trumbull  Gallery,  now 
the  Treasury  Building.  When  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Street  gave  the  building  for  the 
Yale  Art  School,  the  Trumbull  paintings  found  an  appropriate  sandluary  in  the 
main  gallery,  and  under  the  building  still  rest  the  bones  of  the  artist  and  his 
wife.  It  is  plea,sant  to  think  that  perhaps  his  spirit  hovers  around  the  spot, 
pleased  to  see  his  legacy  cherished,  and  to  behold  such  privileges  for  art  study 
as  his  youth  never  had.  "  Connedlicut  is  not  Athens"  yet,  dear  old  Governor 
Trumbull,  but  it  is  a  wee  bit  nearer  to  it. 

The  importance  of  this  acquisition  to  an  educational  center  like  Yale  can- 
not be  overestimated.  As  years  passed,  Trumbull  added  as  many  more  to  the 
number  of  paintings  mentioned  in  the  original  agreement.  There  are  fiftj'-five 
enumerated,  besides  many  miniatures.  Among  them  are  copies  of  the  old  mas- 
ters and  some  large  imaginative  works,  illustrating  poetry,  religion  and  history. 
The  first  independent  work  of  the  boy,  "  The  Battle  of  Cannae,"  is  there,  and 
the  last  effort  of  the  old  man,  "The  Deluge"  ;  but  the  most  numerous,  valu- 
able, and  beautiful  are  those  connedted  with  the  Revolution. 

Here  you  are  ushered  into  the  presence  of  not  one  famous  patriot,  but  an 
assembly  of  our  illu.strious  ones.  We  speak  to  them,  and  they  look  upon  us, 
with  the  cares  of  state,  the  despondency  of  defeat,  the  gladness  of  victory,  in 
their  faces.  They  welcome  us  to  their  midst,  and  ask  us  to  live  and  think 
with  them — Burgoyne  and  Rahl  and  Howe  and  Clinton  and  Riedesel,  Lafayette, 
and  Rochambeau,  De  Grasse  and  De  Lauzun,  Greene,  Gates,  Schuyler,  Knox, 
Morgan,  Glover,  Mifflin,  Wayne,  Lincoln,  Laurens,  Rush,  Monroe,  Madison, 
Rutledge,  the  two  Governors  Trumbull,  Wolcott,  Morris — too  many  to  tell. 

And  the  famous  beauties  who  curled  their  hair  and  rustled  their  silks  for  the 
balls  and  the  assemblies  are  smiling  from  their  miniatures  ;  Martha  Washington, 


98  John   Trumbull,  the  Patriot  Painter. 

and  sweet  little  Eleanor  Custis,  and  Harriet  and  Mary  Chew,  proud  of  their  stately, 
battle-marked  Germantown  home,  and  sweet  Faith  Wadsworth,  daughter  of 
Gov.  Jonathan  Trumbull,  Jr.,  Cornelia  Schuyler  Morton,  "one  of  the  worthiest 
of  women,"  Mary  Seymour  Chenevard,  the  Hartford  beauty,  and  Harriet  Wads- 
worth,  beloved  by  the  painter  and  early  lost. 

Dominating  all  is  Washington,  in  full  uniform,  his  white  horse  at  one  side, 
one  hand  on  his  field-glass,  the  other  on  his  sword,  his  figure  drawn  up  to  its 
full  height,  his  features  lit  by  "the  high  resolve  to  conquer  or  to  perish."  He 
is  planning  his  most  brilliant  move,  just  on  the  night  before  marching  to  Prince- 
ton. The  watch-fires  which  are  to  delude  the  enemy  are  already  burning,  and 
soldiers  are  defending  the  bridge  behind.  The  design,  most  successfully  carried 
out,  was  to  show  Washington  in  his  heroic,  military  chara<5ler.  The  portrait 
was  painted  in  Philadelphia,  in  1792,  for  the  city  of  Charleston,  and  the  general 
entered  with  spirit  into  Trumbull's  idea.  "  Every  minute  article  of  the  dress, 
down  to  the  buttons  and  spurs,  and  every  strap  and  buckle  of  the  horse-furni- 
ture, were  carefully  painted  from  the  several  objedts."  But  Charleston  preferred 
the  hero  as  president,  and  he  patiently  sat  for  another  portrait,  which  is  now  in 
that  cit3^  So  the  artist  kept  this  until  the  Society  of  the  Cincinnati  in  Connedli- 
cut  was  dissolved,  when  he  and  others  (his  brother,  Governor  Trumbull,  Gen. 
Jedediah  Huntington,  the  Hon.  John  Davenport,  the  Hon.  Jeremiah  Wadsworth 
and  the  Hon.  Benjamin  Talmadge)  presented  it  to  the  college.  Many  have 
painted  the  great  man,  but  no  one  else  has  so  clearly  portrayed  his  different 
phases  of  charadler  in  the  varying  and  progressive  scenes  of  his  career,  at  Tren- 
ton, at  Princeton,  at  New  York  after  the  evacuation,  at  Annapolis  laying  down 
his  sword,  and  last  as  president. 

Peace  to  the  proud,  sensitive  soldier-artist,  resting  under  the  monument 
made  by  his  own  hands  !  Life  tossed  him  like  a  ball  between  two  continents, 
but  gave  to  him  more  nearly  than  to  most  men  the  boon  of  accomplishing  his 
heart's  desire. 

Tablet  over  the  Grave  under  the  Yale  Art  School  : 

CoL.  John  Trumbull 

Patriot  and  Artist 

Friend  and  Aid 

OF 

Washington, 

Lies  Beside  his  Wife 

Beneath  this 

Gai^i,Ery  of  Art. 

Lebanon,  1756 — New  York,  1843. 


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